King of Naught
by Lizzy Rebel
Summary: [drabble series, angst!Zutara] spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die [completed]
1. Execution

**Disclaimer:** c'mon, honestly? No way.

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss… despair and therefore die

**Author's Notes:** I actually starting writing this about an hour after I watched the finale. The whole thing was just so heart wrenching that I couldn't stop myself from typing for hours on end this story. At first, it started out as an angry way to deal with Zuko's betrayal… and then I realized what an angsty Zutara tale this could be.

This is just a short, sweet drabble series I wiped up for post-finale writing. So, yes, they're all this short. On the bright side, short chapters mean really quick updates me. See? Not a totaly loss.

So enjoy the pure, Zuko-angsts-all-the-time-forever tale.

* * *

**King of Naught**

**/I: Execution/**

"_Et tu, Brute?"  
_-"Julius Caesar"

* * *

Iroh's execution is two months after Ba Sing Se's coup. Zuko knows. He has made secret marks in a calendar he has carved into the back wall of his bedroom. Azula does not know about it and he has no need to tell her. They are little nicks in wood, nothing of value and importance. Certainly not to Zuko, but he stares at them sometimes, late at night, and watches as the fire from his palm flickers over each nick. 

But they symbolize something. That's why he puts a new one down there every night, counting the days and the hours and the minutes.

He's waiting. He's caught in an in-between and he can't move. He isn't sure what he's waiting for.

"He's a traitor. He must be made an example of," Azula says because Azula is careless. She mocked Iroh when he mourned the death of his son and she mocks him now as he mourns the death of his nephew.

"I want to see him," Zuko says. Stubborn as Azula frowns and flicks sharp fingernails through her hair. Stubborn as she tries to stare him down. He's stubborn.

"Fine," she says and motions the Dai Li to let him pass.

If he had been in the wondering mood he would have wondered if Azula was feeding Iroh. Because he looks haggard and, finally, his age and he has lost countless pounds. And he sits across from Zuko looking disappointed. Not angry, not upset, disappointed.

It's worse that way.

"Why did you do it?" Iroh says and Zuko—in the very back of his mind, the part that had whispered to him at night: _let's make a new life_—can't answer because it doesn't sound like Iroh.

This is an old man, defeated and done and finished.

"I did it," he tells his uncle and in the same breath tells him goodbye. _Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye._ And Iroh knows it too and he's ready because he has nothing left to fight for. Zuko knows that, too. "Because this is what I wanted."

"I told you to look into your _heart_."

"I don't have a heart," Zuko says and tells the truth. His chest is hollow and empty and full of dirt and there is too many times where he cannot breathe.

"I wish…" And Iroh trails off because execution day isn't for wishes.

"I chose my own path," Zuko says, his veins suddenly on fire and it feels like he's fighting even though he isn't moving. He's fighting that slippery demon inside him. The one that has him counting days and hours and minutes. "I wanted my honor."

"You gave up your honor when you let your sister attack the Avatar," Iroh tells him and his face is taut and without sympathy. Zuko knows he does not deserve and he does not look for it.

There is too much to say, and then, all at once, there is nothing. Because Zuko lost the ability to say things long ago—two months, eleven hours, and twenty three minutes—and Iroh knows just how dead his nephew is.

"I hope it makes you happy," Iroh says and stands and walks out. And Zuko sits and stares and tries to remember how they had been before.

Azula calls him up not long after and Zuko follows her through the stone palace of the Earth Kingdom. She walks like a Queen, like a conqueror, and she snarls and hisses at servants in her way.

Mai and Ty Lee are at her side always. Mai sends Zuko funny looks but he is beyond the point of noticing them and she goes back to being Azula's bodyguard. Ty Lee bounces from side to side like the execution is a circus and she's performing.

"So it's going to be a professional one?" Ty Lee asks, springing from side to side to get Azula's attention. "Not like the one we gave the Kyoshi warriors?"

"Oh no," Azula answers with smirk and looks at Ty Lee like a mother with a spoiled child. "Iroh only gets the best. Fire Nation honor you know."

_Honor_. And Zuko draws closer into himself.

"Are we going to leave soon?" Mai wants to know. Bored, bored Mai.

"Why should I?" Azula demands haughtily, all feral grins and knowing eyes. "I'm _queen_."

"All hail Queen Azula!" Ty Lee chirps, giggling and bubble and everything a warrior shouldn't be. Zuko would have wondered what the hell was wrong with her, but he didn't care.

Not anymore.

He says nothing. He is not a part of this group. These killing engines, these usurpers. He is a ghost and he walks silently behind them, each step less real than the other and each step seeming to stretch infinite distance.

They walk out into the courtyard sun and Zuko knows he will never feel warm again. It is just another sacrifice—_my choice always my choice_.

The sunlight is bright and burning and hints nothing at the Solar Eclipse that is only weeks away. Azula has sent word to their dread Lord—and has sent the news of Zuko's restoration of honor as well—and he thinks maybe he awaits that, but it's hard to tell now.

"Do you like it?" Azula asks, her question directed at Iroh as he is dragged out by the silent Dai Li. She motions to the scaffold before them. "I found this in an Earth Kingdom book. This is how they used to kill traitors."

Iroh says nothing and he walks up those wooden steps, toward the platform. _Clup. Clup. Clup._ His funeral march, his proud, unbending funeral march. He doesn't look at Azula. He doesn't look at Zuko. They are already dead to him.

"I thought," Azula teased lightly, circling the platform so she stands in front of Iroh as he looks out into the sky. "You'd enjoy dying this way, since you love the Earth Kingdom and everything."

"The Avatar will defeat you." Now Iroh looks over at Zuko and their eyes meet. "All wrongs will be corrected."

"Get on with it," Mai says, bored and dry, and Zuko realizes that he could hate her if he could feel anything.

"Pull!" Ty Lee cries.

_Pull_. And Iroh swings. He sucks in a breath and goes plunging through the trapdoor. And Azula smirks as the crack of bones breaks the peaceful, sunny courtyard of the Earth Kingdom palace.

Zuko watches his uncle's swinging feet for a second. Two. Three. Then he turns and walks away. He doesn't walk toward the palace. For a moment he thinks he will keep walking until he falls of the edge of the abyss.

But Ba Sing Se doesn't have abysses. It has walls. Only walls. Walls to keep you in. Walls to keep you out.

"Aren't you staying?" Azula calls and rolls her eyes when Zuko keeps walking. "It's not like he's suffocating, Zuzu. His neck's already _snapped_."

He keeps walking. Azula smirks at his back and he knows it. But he keeps on walking.

When he finally stops he doesn't know where he is and heads back to the palace.

* * *

**notes:** see? I told you tons of angst. And, yes, go ahead. Kill me. Guess I deserve after killing Iroh off. I didn't want to! It's what the story required! Honest! 


	2. Honor

**Disclaimer:** this is my sad face. See? Sad

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss… despair, and therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** let's just consider this a little filler episode, shall we? It's necessary to set up for the Great Big Fall that's headed your way next chapter. Plus you're going to need a little less violence before Part III. Not less angst, just violence.

* * *

**/II: Honor/**

"_O coward conscience, thou doth afflict me"  
_-"Richard III"

* * *

Zuko did it for honor. For nothing else. For no greater motive than Azula promised honor and Iroh—_dead, dead, dead Iroh_—promised a reset.

He is naked and pale and a newborn babe without honor and he went to Azula to clothe himself. Zuko is defined by his honor and without it he is worthless. He was worthless for too many years and the only time he feels anything is when he remembers.

But he is worthless now, too. Zuko feels this.

"Another message from father," Azula says, sitting among the splendor of the Earth King's throne room, pleased to draw her fingernails down the armrest, to cup her head and yawn. Azula was born for this.

There is nothing for Zuko to say. He has lost his voice. He has lost too many things. He cannot count them all and he has stopped making the intentions on his walls. Now he just sits in the dark and doesn't sleep and wonders when it'll all make sense again and when he'll feel like his voice is worth something.

Never ever.

"Come now, Zuko. Father has already said he's proud of you and you'll be welcomed a hero when we return," Azula says and glances over at him when he remains silent and unmoving beside her throne. "If I wanted to talk to a wall, Zuko, I'd go get Mai."

_Mai…_ Zuko thinks about how she killed the baby today at Azula's request, calmly throwing her knife before the mother could understand what was going on. Her husband had been a supporter of the Avatar.

"Fine." Azula shrugs and goes back to her comfortable position in the throne's cushions. "Father says that they defeated the men at the Serpent's Pass, sent their heads back to their homes. They were Water Tribe, I think."

Zuko wonders about Water Tribe girls. He remembers—two months, four days, forty eight minutes—meeting her once. She had said he was the face of her fears, the face that had killed her mother, who had taken everything from her. Then she had offered to change it, make him different.

He had almost said yes. He would have said yes. _Yes, if I'm not Zuko than honor won't matter so much._ But everything had happened too fast and she was gone and he was still Zuko and Azula was giving him everything he wanted.

The Avatar only has a few weeks. Zuko knows how soon the Solar Eclipse is. He has kept track of that to, waiting for it. It will be nice not to be a Firebender, even if for a day. Because that means he won't be Zuko.

That night Zuko makes new marks on his wall. He fixes the days he has missed and adds new ones and he shivers as he looks at it, the fire in his palm dimming.

Inside and out he is cold and he chains himself to his calendar and tells himself that he will wait. Wait and see. He doesn't know what he is waiting for, but he needs to wait because there is nothing else to do.

This is Zuko now, he thinks and looks down at his palm. The hand that killed his uncle. And he thinks that this Zuko has problems and needs help and nearly laughs at himself because he's Zuko.

And he always will be.

Sometimes his skin is too constricting. Like when he walks behind Azula and Ty Lee and Mai and they talk about war and death and blood. When Mai looks at him and Ty Lee giggles and Azula laughs. He wants to claw himself free and run bleeding into the streets. To find his uncle's grave and beg, beg, _beg_…

But he doesn't. He thinks _honor_ and all other thoughts are drowned out and dead and he is pale and ghostly and beyond everything that could save him. Beyond Waterbenders and uncles and friends.

He is Zuko and he has his honor and nothing else.

"What?" Azula demands the next day as she heads to _her_ throne room. She wheels around and glares at the Dai Li. "What do you mean the Avatar is coming here?"

There is no need to explain. News has already reached them. The Avatar is moving hard across the land, like an avenging angel. The Fire Army falls at his feet and the once gentle man-child leaves no survivors.

Azula smirks and she's ready and daring and bold. She wants this. She is a woman born to harshness. Born to rule. She is born to throw children from high walls and to impale men and women onto walls. She is born to smirk and smile at the thought of blood. And she is born to kill.

_Kill. Kill. Kill._ That's what they're good at. Every one of them. Zuko to Avatar. They are the child assassins, brought into a world where no one is a child. They are never young and they are never soft and they are rarely alive by the end of it.

Zuko wonders if Azula will die. He wonders why he isn't worried.

"They must have found out what we did to the Water Tribe," Ty Lee suggests and grins all happy and childlike even though her hands are more than capable of doing unspeakable things to other bodies. "Guess that means that cutie will be coming here too!"

"I hope you're ready to take him down," Mai says monotonously. She is always ready to kill. Her body is the weapon and her fingers are agile and graceful and she looks at Zuko in half curiousness.

"Of course!"

"Prepare my armor," Azula orders and snaps her fingers, sending electricity shooting through her fingertip. She has offered to show Zuko. He doesn't want to. He doesn't care. He has his _honor_.

They spend the days left preparing, setting up. Azula trains relentlessly and Zuko does the same behind her, flexing his muscles in perfect coordination with her. She smirks at him and challenges him and teases Mai who watches them.

"Are you ready, brother?" she asks sometimes and Zuko says nothing as flames answer her and Azula is pleased with him.

He doesn't tell her, there is no point.

But Zuko is not going to fight. He doesn't know how he knows, but he just knows when they come he will not move. He will stand and wait and see what happens. He's waiting now, waiting for something that will put him back where he needs to be.

There are hollow places inside him and they are filled with waiting, with holding oxygen in because they know this is something big. This is the Avatar. This is the boy—_man_—who has defined Zuko's life.

Zuko does not pray, but he prays this time. He prays for the waiting to stop. He prays for the empty pieces in him to fill up, with blood or meaning. He prays for the jigsaw fragments of himself to fit back together.

And he thinks: _Avatar… Avatar… Avatar…_

The Avatar is coming, leaving a wake of frozen and burned soldiers in his wake. There are whispers that the Avatar is insane, driven mad by loss. Zuko does not believe them, even as Azula laps them up eagerly, ready to hear more about her enemy.

Once upon a time, Zuko remembers the Avatar wishing they could be friends. He suspects the Avatar wishes him dead now. And he remembers the day—two months, seven days, twelve hours—when he glared at Zuko. Not because he was the enemy, not because he had hounded the Avatar like a dog.

But because Zuko had been close enough to touch a Waterbender girl.

Then he wonders if she will come to. He wonders if she will kill him, if his face is still the enemy to her.

Zuko marks up his wall calendar. And he waits.

He _waits_.

* * *

**notes:** poor, Zuko. Well, that's what one gets when one's a traitor. But at least there was some Zutara! And next chapter is the opening for the promised angst!Zuatara. Because you know, the meeting is _not_ going to be pretty.

**reviews**

**requim17:** yes, Avatar does have a lot of symbolism in it. That's probably why I got hooked despite it being a show aimed at young children. And I don't think Iroh will die. Or, at least, we won't see him die. We might be told, but I don't think the creators would actually give Iroh an animated death. And that makes me happy. Keeping them in character has been the hardest part of the series, but I am trying

**erai:** thanks! I am an awful person, and just a sap for angst. I dunno why, since I'm a romantic at heart and I love happy ending… XD

**Rexnos:** drabbles are fun, and fast, which is great for me. Anyway, I know you're not the biggest fan of much angst so I'm glad you're putting up with it! Yes, and Iroh's death is necessary since it has a huge impact on Zuko and his journey of self. I'm calling it a Walkabout

**Riana1:** :P, do I sense some animosity to Zuko? (can't say I blame you)

**Story Weaver1:** oh, the angst hasn't even started yet. Just you wait. Just you wait


	3. Recapture

**Disclaimer:** this is my sad face. See? Sad

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss… despair, and therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** ah, sorry about the non-updates? Got a little preoccupied, but everything should be coming faster now. Lots and lots faster. Honest!

And, ah, a warning! Character death… character _deaths_. And blood and violence. Lots of all that stuff. Really.

* * *

**/III: Recapture/**

"_the quality of mercy is not stain'd"  
_-"Merchant of Venice"

* * *

Zuko feels them before they come. It is like ice on his skin and it is the first time in—two months, eleven days, eight hours—he feels. Azula looks at him when he sucks in a breath, the biggest noise he has made since she has killed Iroh.

They are coming and he is gasping in his breath, thinking over and over again that _finally, finally, finally!_

The Waterbender comes in first, the others right on her heels. She is the attention grabber, she fills the room with her presence and Zuko feels himself fill a little bit too. Her face is bright with rage and murderous intent and she going to kill. _Killkillkillkill_.

The Dai Lee rushes forward. Water burst from under the girl and she slams into them, sending them scattering like domino. But she is already moving, leaping over their heads and moving right for Azula. She sees only Azula and her blood and the fact that she shouldn't be _breathing_.

Azula leaps, laughing as she dodges the hard slap of water against her cheek. She grins crookedly at the Waterbender. "Oh, did you hear about what we did to the Water Tribe at the Serpent's Pass? Don't worry, we sent them home. What's _left_ of them."

The girl is breathing hard and deep and she is gasping and panting like she has run a marathon. But Zuko knows that she is fighting her rage, deep down inside. Because rage will make her blind and she is going to kill Azula. She will need to be cool ice, not blistering fire.

"You… _bitch_…" she whispers and Azula sees what Zuko has seen since the first moment she had walked into the room.

She is going to kill Azula. Kill her hard and painful. She is driven and she possessed and she can only think that Azula has killed everything that she loves and everything that she holds dear and _Azula is still breathing_—

Water and lightning meet but Zuko knows Azula already has the disadvantage. She isn't driven like the girl is, isn't possessed. Azula fights for greed and power and prestige. The girl sees only the dead before her, sees only the men and women and babies Azula has murdered, sees only the Fire Nation and a hundred years of war.

And she is screaming, screaming as she attacks. Her hands fill with water. Her voice is hoarse and strained and it's just a long stream of vocal cords ripping apart her throat. But she is thinking it. Over and over.

_How could you? How could you kill everything that ever mattered to me?_

Already, Azula loses ground, backing up as the girl never lets up. Never ever lets up. Did Azula ever show other people mercy? The Waterbender shows the Princess of the Fire Nation none.

The war rages all around Zuko, but he doesn't move. He is stone still. The Avatar's Earthbender takes down the Dai Lee that swarm them, moving metal and earth. The brother of the Waterbender has a sharper, longer sword and he is swinging it wildly at Ty Lee. The Avatar is facing Mai, bending against knives.

Azula parries and kicks and electrocutes. But it is no good. Azula backs up as the girl pounds into her, tears running down her cheeks as she grits her teeth against her rage. Zuko knows that Azula was dead the moment the Waterbender entered the room. There is no escaping that rage.

He wonders if Azula knows, too.

There is something in her eyes, something different. Not smirking now. But fear. Real fear as she twists her leg and kicks. Fear as the girl ices it up and slams into the ground.

She looks over at him once, for help, for power, for him, and then looks away disgusted. Zuko does not move.

And then suddenly, there is such deafening silence. The girl slams a jagged icicle into Azula's chest. Blood runs down the clear, frozen liquid as it bursts out her back. She grips it, clattering to her knees, gasping in pain and death and fear. Little girl fear. Little _I don't want to die_ fear.

The Waterbender backs away and watches.

"Zu…ko…?" Azula rattles, but she can't turn to face him. He watches as she falls to her side, still gripping the shard in her chest. It pierced her heart and she is dead in two seconds.

And all Zuko does is stare.

Blood runs red from her body, cooling long before it hits the floor. Zuko likes fire better. It's easier to accept death because the blood is just too real and red and final. Azula does not move and does not breathe and the only thing moving inside her is the blood going out of her.

For the first time—two years, nine months, and twenty-six days—Zuko thinks: _my sister_…

Then the Waterbender moves on him. Her hand is a block of solid ice. It crunches against the side of Zuko's face but he doesn't do anything. He staggers, feels the bones snap in pain, but remains standing.

Then the ice hand grabs his shoulder and throws him to the floor across the room. Water surrounds him and he can't breathe and for a moment he thinks that this is good and this is how it should be.

But the water is gone and all he is, is water, his lungs taking in air. He turns his head to his left.

There is Mai, already down, her body arched into an awkward position. Her chest moving is up and down shallowly before she sucks in one more breath and lays still and dead and pale on the floor, her hand nearly reaching out for him.

Ty Lee dances away from the brother, her feet not nearly fast enough to keep her ahead of him. She's on the defense and she's losing and no one is there to help her. She is the last and she looks at Zuko, wet and unmoving on the floor.

She is crying. Big, wet tears as she lifts her wrists to catch the sword that falls onto her. She gasps in pain and stumbles away, nearly tripping, all the gracefulness she had had long gone.

"Please—" she tries, but can't.

"You killed her!" the boy—_man, murderer_—screams and cuts right across the side of her face with his sword. "You killed _Suki_!"

And Ty Lee is dead. He stabs right into her stomach as a retribution for the children the Kyoshi warrior will never have. Ty Lee gurgles and reached out for her murderer but he backs away from and lets her fall to the floor by herself as he goes to clean his sword of her hateful blood.

The young woman manages to roll over him, grasping her bleeding stomach. She gurgles back blood and strains her neck to meet his eyes. She is just a little girl and he remembers now that Azula mentioned that Ty Lee never wanted to come in the first place.

_Little girl…_ he thinks, staring right back at her, feeling the water dry off. _Little, lonely girl._

"I'm—I'm s—so afraid. I do—don't want to di—die," she says as the shivers start. "Az—Azula? Mai?" And then, last of course, she calls out weakly, "Zuko?"

He reaches out and takes her hand as she begins to sob fearfully. And he grips it until the sobs stop and the hand stills and there is no more Ty Lee, just a bloody body of another causality of war.

Then he feels the feet just above his hair. He tilts his head back and stares into the Avatar's eyes. The young boy isn't a boy anymore and he stares down at Zuko without any real emotion. Just like Zuko.

"Why didn't you kill me?" he asks as he lets go of Ty Lee's hand because it wouldn't do her any more good.

"Death is too good for you," the Avatar answers and walks away, already knowing that Zuko won't leave.

Because he agrees.

* * *

**notes:** told you didn't I? I warned you. I don't know why I killed Azula/Ty Lee/Mai off so hideously because the three of them are honestly about my favorite characters on the show! Next chapter will finally have Zutara. Subtle!Zutara, but Zutara nonetheless.

**reviews**

**Dr. Nitro the Element Emperor:** yeah, well, if you really, really, _really_ hate Zutara you're not going to like this fic at all. One of it's main components is Zutara. Heh, can't help it. Liked 'em since Episode 1. XD

**Outsane:** I wish let us add another category to stories so I can have Angst/Tragedy/Romance, because that pretty much covers all my bases!

**janii:** I have every attention of seeing this through to the end, even if it KILLS Zuko.

**mystic-water:** well, on lj I don't have to worry about insulting Zutara-haters because I'm posting it through the Zutara community so… yeah…

**Story Weaver1:** Zuko is like a robot, and it only gets worse before it can get better. IF it gets better. Zuko just seems so rip for angst. But I still miss angry!Zuko

**requim17:** I like giving characters time to shine in fanfiction then they normally would in TV shows just because everyone needs to get screen time. Since this is told completely from Zuko's POV we can really focus on just what he sees, which lets us dive deeper into characteristics of the villains and such since he is, technically, a villain. Of course, then you have to worry about keeping them IC


	4. Queen

** Disclaimer:** you make me sad...

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... dispair, and therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** well, it's not be _that_ long, has it? And, on the bright side, I'm not killing anyone anytime (soon).

**

* * *

/IV: Queen/**

_"though this be madness, yet there is method in 't"_  
-"Hamlet"

* * *

They are all different, is what Zuko thinks as he lays flat on the floor, bound by the Waterbender. The ice should be freezing his hands but he feels nothing. Nothing at all. No one has taken Ty Lee's body away from him and she lays there staring helplessly at him because no one has closed her eyes.

The Avatar's group is talking quietly, near the throne. They pay dead Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee no mind. And they give him even less mind. He's just Zuko. He is worthless. He has always been worthless.

The group has changed. There is a certain amount of weight on their shoulders. The short, Earthbender who can't see but feel and who feels everyone because her powers let her do that and her bones are cracking under the weight. Of course, the Waterbender and her brother, father and mother and lover dead.

And the Avatar has changed most of all. There is a certain level of calmness in everything. From the way he moves to the way he talks to the way he touches the Waterbender's arm to calm her.

But he's like Zuko. There's no emotions in him. The Avatar is the Avatar. He is not the young boy named Aang. He is the generations now. He is the men and women who came before him. And those timeless beings know nothing of emotion.

"You can't be serious, Aang!" the Waterbender snaps, all righteous fury, hands shaking into clenched fists. "You can't go without me."

"Someone needs to train the troops, Katara," the timeless man-child says soothingly. "And you're the best teacher we have. You need to stay in Ba Sing Se, lead it, because we're going to need the backup in a few weeks."

_Backup,_ Zuko remembers suddenly, _there's only a few more weeks until the Solar Eclipse. Maybe they'll kill me then._

"What about Sokka? Or Toph?"

"I'm going," the brother says and it sounds final and the Waterbender looks away from him. The pain there is great and wide and expanse.

"Hard to train what I can't see," the Earthbender reasons, which really isn't a good reason at all since she's the best Earthbender and she can _feel_ people miles away. "Besides, Aang'll need me to bend the metal."

"Please, Katara," the Avatar intercedes when she starts to protest. "I need you to do this for me." He is pleading but there is nothing in his eyes. He is the Avatar and the crush the boy Aang had on her is gone.

"Alright," the Waterbender answers and embraces him, who only holds her lightly. Waves of matronly love rush off the girl, but the Avatar remains unaffected. "Please be careful, you guys. Promise me you'll call for me the moment you need it."

The brother walks right past them without a word, not even glancing down as he barely misses crunching on Zuko's frozen hands. The Waterbender looks after him, her face pained and needy and worried.

"I'll look after him," the short young girl says to the Waterbender and runs after him, her feet moving fast across the ground.

"Be careful, Aang," she says to the Avatar, looking like she is holding herself back from embracing him. "The Avatar State doesn't make you immortal, you know."

"I know," the Avatar answers and something flashes in his eyes. A huge fissure of pain, of serving emotions and disconnection to the things he once upon a time wanted.

Zuko knows the feeling.

The soldiers of the Earth Kingdom come in right after the Avatar leaves. They don't pay him attention at all. They are heading to the Waterbender, who stands in front of the throne, refusing to sit in it. It is a hard throne, full of blood and massacre and betrayal, where it used to be full of hope and peace and naivety.

He wonders what happened to the Earth King. If he died.

Then he sees that the Waterbender is, no matter what, the leader of the Ba Sing Se. She is the queen and, once she accepts it, she will be beautiful with it. Her dark hair and dark skin is made for the gold of a crown.

But maybe she won't wear the crown. Maybe she's just _pro tempore_. She watches the Avatar go with such longing.

And then she starts snaps orders at the soldiers. Set up barracks, see who still lives in the city, find soldiers, start the training. A long list of never ending chores that Azula had made Ty Lee, Mai, and him do. Except train the soldiers. Azula had seen to that personally.

Unable to stop himself, he looks toward Azula. Her back is to him and the shard of ice protruding from her back is dyed red with her blood.

"What should we do with him?" someone asks and Zuko looks up at an Earthbender standing just above his nose.

There's no point in asking. Zuko already knows that the Earth soldier wants. He wants to kill Zuko, wants to maim him and make him suffer like the Fire Nation made his wife or his children or his father or his mother, brother, sister suffer. He knows that hate well, even if he hasn't feel it in too long.

"I'll deal with him," the Waterbender snaps and has the soldier walking away even before she approaches to take his place.

"Close her eyes," Zuko says before the Waterbender can open her mouth. His voice is hoarse and strained from disuse and he thinks that Azula would make fun of him… if she were alive.

"What?"

"Her eyes." He inclines his head toward Ty Lee. "She's dead." And she keeps staring at him, staring and staring and begging him to hold her because she is so afraid of dying and she is too young to even think about it.

The Waterbender frowns and bends down to close Ty Lee's eyes. She stands, her spine straight and stiff, and turns toward the wide audience area of the throne room. The back of it is covered in blood. Azula's blood and Ty Lee's blood. Mai was snapped in half by the Avatar. She had bleed on the inside, spilling not a drop.

"Bury them," the Waterbender says and narrows her eyes when the Earth soldiers step forward, anger in every vein. "Show respect for the dead. I want them cleaned up and buried with honor."

_Honor._ Zuko chokes.

Ty Lee is bounded up in strong Earth arms and she looks so tender and so very fragile and oh-so dead. Mai is slung over a shoulder and someone gets to work on working the frozen ice out of Azula's breast.

Suddenly, he doesn't want to watch anymore and he stares back up at the ceiling, waiting until the three of them are gone. Zuko thinks maybe he should think of the good times with them except there were no goods times.

The Waterbender is looking at him and Zuko wonders what she sees. She told him he had been the face of her enemy and he wonders if that was the case now. If the scar and the eyes and the nose made her think of her father dead. Of all the other people dead.

_"The Fire Nation killed my mother."_

"And him?" someone asks but Zuko doesn't bother looking at them. "He's the Prince, isn't he? Even with all that hair. What do you want us to do with him?"

"He'll go to prison," Katara answers. "He'll stand on trial for his crimes. We won't just kill him. We're not murderers. They are."

If he could muster the energy he would laugh. _We're all murderers.

* * *

_

**notes:** yes, this _is_ a reverse take on the cliche Katara-is-taken-as-Zuko's-prisoner fic. But with much more angst and Earth Kingdom and dead people... and no sex or really, really fluffy happy-happy-joy-joy stuff. You know why? Because Zuko is too busy angsting in that corner. I miss my angry!Zuko.

**reviews**

**Rexnos:** I can assure you, there will be _lots_ of character development. In fact, this story is mostly about Zuko's emotional journey into adulthood (or that's what it ended up being about). But since these chapters are so sort, it takes a while... XD

**Neptune47:** I'm glad your enjoying it! Zuko gets really, really numb before we get to the second part of this story. I also think that the key to a Zutara relationship, or at least one you're taking on a serious level, is subtleness. Because they have enough emotional baggage (despite being 14 and 17) to cause relationship problems.

**Fushikio:** in all fairness, I _did_ warn you

**Story Weaver1:** oh, it hurt to kill of Ty Lee, but in the end it's necessary. This, of course, was meant to a personally intense battle and I'm glad that everyone got that. XD


	5. Prison

**Disclaimer:** I only _wish _I owned Avatar. Alas, I do not

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... dispair and therefore die

**Author's Notes:** hehe.. I actually I have nothing to say. Still not killing anyone off anytime soon. But don't think I'm done wielding that axe!

* * *

**/V: Prison/**  


_"we two alone will sing like bird I' th' cage"_  
-"King Lear" 

* * *

They put him right into jail, no words, no thoughts. Just his body being dragged along the palace halls, down to the dank and dreary dungeons that had hosted criminals and advisors and anything else the Dai Li had named dangerous.

Zuko doesn't figure he's all that dangerous—maybe two months, eleven days, and thirteen hours ago—and he wonders if that's why they drag him roughly against the floor, letting his head bang against the stone.

He doesn't care. It's too hard and too much effort to care. He just sits in the corner of his tiny cell and watches the sun as sets and he dies and the moon rises and the Waterbender lives.

That night he carves his calendar into his new wall with a piece of chipped stone he finds on the floor. He has memorized the lines and the dates he had created for himself and adds another line and marks _P1_ on it. _Prison, Day 1_. He wonders how long he's going to be here, but decides that it doesn't matter.

Where else did he have to go?

His father wouldn't ever want him back when the Avatar had waltzed in and taken over. And Zuko has to admit to himself—now that he is in prison and has nowhere to go but down—that he hasn't ever planned on going back.

Not to the Fire Nation because that place belongs to a different Zuko. Even the Zuko he is now—the one with his own honor and his dead sister—doesn't belong there. He's too aimless and too detached.

Maybe this Zuko doesn't belong anywhere except in prison.

They don't bring food the first day and Zuko carves onto the wall. Little inscriptions he remembers from childhood and school. He isn't sure why, but he can't stop himself. He's furiously carving into the stone and a part of him is just sitting back and watching, maybe laughing at him.

That's the night when the soldiers come in. Zuko's heard stories about jail and he's ready. He's the enemy and he's killed them and hurt them and destroyed everything they love.

He's in the corner and waiting for them. He does a lot of waiting and he still isn't sure what he's waiting for.

It hurts. And it's the first thing that hurts in a while. And maybe it's not so much the physical pain that hurts him so much, but all the emotions that seem to drip down from these men. He feels dirty and cheap and awful because he has taken something from each of these men.

Just like the Waterbender said. He is the face of the enemy.

His ribs are cracked from kicks and his legs are swollen from being stomped on. His hair is mattered with blood from when his skull was cracked against the stone. His face is mosaic of bruises and bumps and blood. His nose is nearly broken and his teeth are loose, and he knows his skin has a purple tint.

The whole time he had wondered if they were going to kill him. But they didn't. They left him an inch of his life.

But if they had asked for his rock he would have given it to them and taken a beating that way. He isn't sure why and he doesn't really want to think about it. All he knows is that he can't feel any fear when they hit him because he doesn't think he even deserves to feel fear. Zuko is too weak to even feel fear.

It is a strange feeling and one that Zuko has never felt before. But he feels it strong now. He has felt it since he chose honor over a reset and it hasn't left him. He can't escape it and he grows silent and emotionless and completely detached from everything around him. He's watching it all from a viewer's box and he can't get enough energy to care about what happens to him.

What, honestly, does it all matter? What does he have?

It is nothing. It is a nothingness, an emptiness, that hasn't left him. That makes him hollow and numb and dead. He has been dead before Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. He has been dead before Iroh.

Zuko has been dead for a while and he wonders if they will really kill him and make the outside match the in.

Food doesn't come that day. The men don't come that night. Or the night after. Or the night after that. But food doesn't come either. He wonders if they're trying to starve him and doesn't care.

The only thing he does is religiously mark his calendar. He keeps track because he's waiting, even if he has nothing to wait for. He doesn't understand that waiting feeling inside his breast but he marks the stone walls with his broken stone. And he counts the days.

That awful Solar Eclipse is marked down on his calendar. And he has it circled. He doesn't remember circling it but he doesn't remember a lot of his time in the small cell. Everything is just too cramped and crowded, in thoughts and body.

"They're not giving you your food?" she demands as the door swings up. Lit pours in and Zuko backs away from it, lifting a hand to defend his eyes. "I _told_ them to give you your food days ago."

It's the Waterbender and she has a plate of food in her hands. Zuko thinks it could be the worst slop in the world and he would still gladly cut off his own hand to get some. He doesn't mention that to the Waterbender as she might ask him to do just that.

"Your face," she says, staring at the bruises and marks that haven't left. She sets the tray down and bends to face him. Zuko feels the cool slid of hands against his face. "Let me heal them."

"Don't bother," Zuko tells her on a little laugh. "I know you don't care."

"That doesn't mean I'm going to come in here every night and make you a personal punching bag." She grabs a bowl of soup and drops it into his slap. "Eat it up. If you don't, I'll shove it down your throat."

He eats because he stomach is twisting painfully and he can't ignore it. The Waterbender patches him up, makes the bruises and blood go away in every part of his body and Zuko is reminded that once upon time she said she could remove his scar from him.

But he doesn't ask for it now.

His scar burns when she touches him, as if it's fearful that it'll be healed. Zuko doesn't care either way. He can't care. It's just too much and he wants to go back to sleep and not think anyone's dead.

The Waterbender is looking at him strangely, as if trying to read his mind. Zuko wishes her good luck, because even he can't do that. He looks at her and watches her watch him and waits.

For the first time in so long—two months, fourteen days, twenty hours—Zuko thinks that maybe he hopes the Waterbender will see the same thing Iroh saw. And then he hopes she will leave because he doesn't want to admit it isn't there anymore.

She doesn't say anything as she stands, still staring. Her eyes are hooded and guarded and she looks at him like he is the enemy and Zuko knows he is. He betrayed the Avatar and she is, and always be, the Avatar's ally.

When the door shuts and Zuko's alone, he rests on his side and closes his eyes. The stone beneath him is damp and cold and the moon stretches out along his walls. He thinks about nothing and looks at the calendar.

_Uncle is dead and I killed him_, he thinks.

Suddenly, Zuko is frightened because he doesn't care about the calendar anymore.

* * *

**notes:** more angst from Zuzu. Because, really, what Avatar be without a exiled Fire Prince angsting about the unfortunate turns of his life while attempting to be both a good kind of person and still get what he wants? Oh, sure angry!Zuko was much more fun to be around (with his tendency to throw soldiers overboard in his Righteous Rage) but angsty!Zuko has _character development_ in a angst-hormonal-driven-teenager kind of way. On the bright side, while Zuko pretty much sucks up all the angst in single episode so we don't have to sit around a listen to the Aangst of Aang (which made me mad for no real reason).

**reviews**

**Rexnos:** this whole story revolves around Zuko's angst, which is Powerful and Mighty Thing and Forces Me to Use Caps when I Probably Shouldn't. But anyway, Katara's not of the torturing variety so Zuko's going to have to do that all on his own. And, _boy_, does he.

**catho:** thanks and continue to enjoy!

**ZuturaisSupreme:** actually, that's often my selfish request of the Avatar crew. I want some angry!Zuko up in 'ere but emo!Hair with it. Because that would be awesome. Also, I think it would be cool to see character development in someone who's just plan pissed off all the time. Because you rarely see someone who's angry change a whole lot. They got to get all dark and broody first. Which is not to a bad thing (since I enjoy angst as well) but it would fine to have Zuko go through all his things, while still being angst.

**StoryWeaver1:** Personally, if I had one character to pick in this show _not_ to be, it would Aang. I mean, he's gonna live again and again and again while his friends/family/lovers die and are not reborn. Which is why I don't think Kataang will really work out in the end, because I personally believe that Aang is a selfless and noble human being and will realize as he mutures that both he and Katara will end up being seperated, her dying and he being reborn, and that it isn't fair to Katara to have her devote her heart to him when, in the next life, he'll meet another girl and possibly fall in love with her and repeat the process all over again. ...I rambled...

**Kitty Elkabush:** this piece actually turned out to be more powerful than I thought it would be. I had to take long breaks to write it, just because it got to me after a while. Which is strange, because I'm usually pretty detached from things like this. But anyway, I'm certainly glad this story has touched you and I hope doesn't disappoint you as it goes on!


	6. Interrogation

**Disclaimer: **if I had really owned _Avatar_, don't you think there'd at least be some semi-hot Zutara make-out scenes by now?

**Teaser: **spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... dispair and therefore die

**Author's Notes: **finally, some real Zutara interaction. Obviously, I've been waiting for this. I wrote the story with Zutara in mind, after all. XD

**

* * *

/VI: Interrogation/  
**

_"let every eye negotiate for itself"  
_-Much Ado About Nothing**_

* * *

_**

He's sitting in a small room with a table and two chairs. Like the one Iroh had been in moments before his death.

If he had cared, Zuko would wonder what they want with him. But he doesn't care and he has lost track of the days and the weeks he has spent in his small, metal cell with moon and silence and food for company.

There is no news of the Avatar. No whispers passed between the cells at night. But Zuko doesn't think that the Avatar has been given up. The man-child is not designed to give up. Not meant to know defeat.

The Avatar is rushing toward the Fire Nation, the Solar Eclipse hot on his heels. The man-child knows he must hurry. Hurry, hurry, hurry or all is for nothing.

Zuko does not wait for it anymore. It feels as if he has lost that last tether to the world and he is free floating. Maybe day he will land but it will be a hard fall, a merciless fall and it will leave Zuko cracked and broken and ruined.

Everything is in pieces and Zuko sits before the puzzle and knows he will never be able to piece it back together.

The Waterbender comes in and doesn't look at him for a moment. Her face is taut and Zuko remembers how Iroh looked at him seconds before his death and he feels his chest burning. But it ices over like it was never there and he can feel no more of it. And it is a relief. It hurts too much to feel now.

"They tell me," the Waterbender says, her voice strained and pained and _how could you?_ "That you stood there when they hanged your uncle."

Zuko thinks of swinging feet and he will never, ever forget because he can't. It isn't in his makeup. There are times when he thinks that if he could feel—if there was something inside him that could still _feel_—he'd cry or he'd hurt or he'd bleed.

But he feels nothing. He is nothing. He his hollow pieces, empty shells, a vessel of blood and organs and nothing else. No soul, no mind.

No heart.

So he says nothing. He is silence incarnate and the Waterbender frowns at him. He wishes she'd go away so he can go back to the quiet of his cell and blend in with the nothingness.

She stands tall across from him, her back straight and stiff and braced. She's ready for him, for whatever move he might make. Zuko doesn't see the point in telling her there is no move to make. He's done and he's finished.

Maybe that's what she sees as she stares at him because she drops her guard and looks at him. Not with any emotion he recognizes, just looks at him, like she will dissect him and pick him apart and see what's left of him.

If she does, Zuko knows she will be disappointed.

And then she says, "What is your father planning?"

His father. Ozai. For so long now he has been Zuko's Holy Grail. He has struggled and toiled and sacrificed for the one moment when his father would be his father again. More than honor, Zuko wants his father.

In the cold, dark cell where it is perpetual night, Zuko realizes that there is no father for him anymore. He was an orphan the moment his mother was killed—_dead? disappeared? taken?_ he doesn't know—because his father never wanted him, never believed in him. Ozai was never a father to his son, he was a father to his daughter.

_Azula_, Zuko thinks and is almost surprised by the hot, prickling taste at the back of his throat. But it's gone too quickly for him to consider it.

"I don't now," he answers and places his rock-encrusted arms onto the table. He considers lowering his head down to them and wonders if she will recognize defeat. He doesn't know.

The Waterbender has been beaten before, beaten and ruined. But he senses she has never known defeat. She picks herself up, picks up the pieces of her life, and moves on. She is a survivor, she is the eternal woman, the Mother Eve, the person who is unafraid of the Avatar when his powers run rampant.

Zuko is relieved. Relieved because she is not afraid of him.

She paces the room, her dark braid of her swinging down her back. It's longer than he remembers and she's done away with the strands over her cheeks, like she has cut off her childhood, the part that knew nothing of blood and death and despair.

He remembers cutting off his braid. He cut off his connections with his nation, but he couldn't cut off his connection to his father, to his sister, to his own needs. If he had cut out his own heart he might—

No. He has no heart.

"You're the son of the Fire Lord, you've been in this palace for two months with Azula, and you don't. Know. Anything?" She is doubtful and he doesn't blame her.

Zuko knows how to interrogate his enemies, too.

But he doesn't know. He has not listened for so long—two months, twenty seven days, and nine hours—and he has learned not to care. Azula might have said something, in hopes of a reaction, but he only remembers the bile in his throat.

"I've been in exile," he answers and looks up at her. "For a long time."

They face each—he sitting, her standing—and they are enemies looking at each other from an expansive distance. But Zuko is already the loser. He knows this. Somehow, at the bottom of his stomach, he knows the war is ending and the Avatar will be the victor. The tiny boy with a timeless soul.

"You really don't know anything, do you?" the Waterbender says and he wonders what she sees in his face that has her looking away. He wonders why she isn't all anger and fire and accusations.

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps she was the one who had changed most of all.

"So it's like Aang said," she says at last, her eyes still burning into his. "You _are_ already dead."

He stares right back at her. What does he have to lose? "When is my execution?" _Trial._ He meant trial. But he supposes it doesn't matter. In the end, trial and execution are interchangeable.

"You're going to be _tried_," she snaps back at him, slapping a hand against the table. "We're not murderers! We're good people. It's _you_ and the _Fire Nation_ who murder people. Who kill and hurt and slaughter and—"

"We're all murderers," he cuts in, speaking up for the first time since Iroh's death. "That's what war is."

"You said you _changed_," she hurls at him.

Then she stops and they look at each other and they are both thinking the same thing. In their heads they both know the truth.

Yes, Zuko had said he had changed. He just did not say whether it was for better or worse.

"I'll be bringing you your food from now on," the Waterbender says and opens the door. The soldiers step in.

"They won't do it," he surmises as he's roughly dragged to his feet, his knees cracking hard against the metal table.

"No," she answers and her eyes clash with his as he is pulled away. "They won't. Can you blame them?"

He can see she's looking for a certain answer from him, but Zuko has learned not to read people or minds. So he tells her the truth.

"No, I can't."

* * *

**notes:** I really like letting Zuko and Katara interact, especially because I think they could snark so well off each other. Obviously, that'll have to be toned down quite a bit in KoN, considering their positions (dirty!) and the fact that they've matured a bit from where we left them in season two. But the reason why I ship Zutara is because they really do have such great dialogue with one another, and they look like they'd set off a whole bunch of sparks. XD 

**reviews**

**DirtWaterFoxPrince**aw, you'll make me flush! Thank you for that (not sure if it's true, but thank you!)

**Kitty Elkabush:** yes. Yes. My God, this thing has so much angst that sometimes, I need to step back, look around, and go "Sweet Lord, that's a lotta angst."

**Renn Skye:** wow, thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying this so very much. Would it bother you terribly to learn that this is really just a manifestation of my rage of the finale of Season Two? XD My dialogue has never really been my strong point, but I actually don't think KoN showcases my ability in that area to much. KoN is really more about action than words and when I come to the part where I normally _would _have point in dialogue, I realized that it would have more meaning to the story as a whole is Zuko remained silent. Point is, Zuko is beyond words because he feels soulless. Ghosts don't do a lot of talking after all. I really, really do need to pratice my dialogue on a whole, but I probably won't be getting much pratice down in here because I feel too many words with this thing would ruin the effect. But that's just me. :P

**Story Weaver1:** we aren't done with the calander just yet, or the mortif of time (dude, my English teacher would be so proud!), but the focus is going to shift as we enter the Second Arc. Also, me and my sister argue a lot about whether or not I would like Zuko without his Angsty Scar of Doom. I'm not sure. :D

**Alieraisu: **I was trying to capture something very "stream of conscious" but I was never really good at writing like that. Mostly, I just stick to run-on sentences. But I'm glad it feels like we've got a bird's eye view from Zuko's head!


	7. Painted

**Disclaimer:** again, I point out that I own nothing

**Teaser: **spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... dispair and therefore die

**Author's Notes:** and here we go, again. More angsty-Zutara goodness. You know, all things considered, I honestly think that Katara and Zuko could've had a healthy relationship if they were born... without a war. But that's just my opinion.

**

* * *

/VII: Painted/**

_"no beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity"_  
-"Richard III"

* * *

And so she comes. Zuko doesn't count the days she comes, but he knows that somehow he has come to look forward to them. His body knows when she is close because his feet are lighter and his eyes are ready for the hot light of the sun that streams in behind her.

He tries not to keep track, he tells himself he is not. He tries not to memorize the time when she comes because things in Zuko's life are fleeting and gossamer and he is a child and he destroys all that he touches.

But he has learned to read her. The Waterbender has good days and bad days.

On good days she lingers with him while he eats and heals the wounds the soldiers have given him the previous night. She mutters about teaching them lessons in humanity and Zuko wonders if she really does, because they still come. Every night.

Bad days are the worst. She gives him his food and leaves and Zuko feels empty and hollow and he looks too long at his door, hoping she will come back. She doesn't, of course. She has duties.

There are soldiers to train. People to kill. Wars to fight.

Zuko knows better than to question. He knows that there is a line between them that he cannot cross. The Waterbender feels nothing for him. But she is kind, even if she hates him and puts him at the front of her enemies, and her watery heart won't allow her to ignore the blood that cakes his face or the broken bones in his body.

Today he prays is a good day when the door opens.

But instantly he cannot tell it is not. Zuko has learned to read her, better than anyone else. He braces himself for disappointment, for abandonment, for the gut clenching need to call her back.

She doesn't leave, for a long while she stares down at him and says nothing. He cannot tell what she thinks, but he knows. Knows. Something is happening and it has her worried and it has her frowning down at him.

_Enemy_, she is thinking. Zuko knows it. _He is my enemy._

Then she sits across from him and hands his sloppy soup. It is heaven and it smells like her hands, but Zuko doesn't think about that. All he is thinking that this is his only soup for the day and he will savor the taste.

"Tomorrow is the Solar Eclipse," Katara says.

The soup is tasteless then, dry as dust. He doesn't stop eating—the stomach needs it; needs the energy.

He has not kept track of the days. His calendar is pale and unused behind Katara and his chipped rock is under the tiny cot that makes up his bed. It is hard to remember the elegant featherbeds, or even the soft cushions of his ship's bedroom.

It is hard to remember a lot of things. Happiness is one of them.

Katara is thinking about the Avatar. Zuko's well aware of how often he is on her mind. She defends the boy who is centuries older and wiser than her like a fierce mother protecting her cub.

But the Avatar has let go of all things and Katara is left behind, reaching out for him, trying to protect him because there is something tiny and perfect and childlike about him that needs to be preserved.

"I hate you, you know," she says and he wonders if she is trying to get a rise out of him. Azula would have. But Katara is not Azula.

There is no answer for it and he continues to sip his soup, storing up the energy. He can't remember when he started caring about eating again, but he loves the feel of hot soup on his tongue and sliding down his throat.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she demands.

"Why?"

She stares at him. "Why what?"

"Why should I say anything?"

He wonders what they have. And then he corrects himself. "They" don't have anything. They are nothing. They are just two people locked in a palace and she is too kind to ignore his suffering. Perhaps she comes to his cell not just to give him his food. Perhaps she's trying to gauge him, trying to see the prince he had once been or the boy who had betrayed her in the caves.

Or maybe she comes to remind herself what the enemy looks like. He knows that he is still her enemy's face.

But—

Zuko does not allow the thought to escape his mind.

"I guess you have changed." It almost sounds like she has found something she has looked for. "Aang was right."

He doesn't want to know about Aang. Suddenly, that is the last thing he wants to hear.

Katara stands suddenly and moves to the door. Zuko's already drawing back into the little shell he has carved out. Where it is cold and he is alone but at least it is silent and the sounds of Ba Sing Se, the city that once meant a new beginning and now means an end, are gone and he cannot feel anything.

"Ask me," she says suddenly, "for forgiveness. Ask me to heal your scar. Ask me to stop judging you. Ask me to understand you. Ask me to stop hating you."

For some reason Zuko feels something burning down in his stomach and he does not recognize it. He looks at Katara, looks at her eyes—which are hooded and guarded and closed—and thinks that he needs to say something now. Something moving and deep and profound.

He remembers Iroh's feet. Swinging.

Azula's chest, bloody and torn.

Mai bent in half.

Ty Lee begging him, begging him and telling him she didn't want to die.

There is nothing for Zuko say. He remembers that he is nothing and that Katara is just looking to define him, to send her report to the Avatar. Zuko remembers that he has traded in everything that matters for honor.

This is a prison and he comes to find a home in it. His warden is his mortal enemy.

"No," he says.

"No?" she repeats, glaring down at him, her hand on the doorknob. "No?"

"You wouldn't give it to me," he points out. "And it wouldn't mean anything to me."

She takes it the wrong way and her face tightens. She slams the door on her way out and Zuko wonders if she will ever come back and he knows she probably won't. For the first time—nearly three months—he thinks he feels regret.

He is a child of nothing. He is weak and his life is filtered out to the bottom. He is in a prison and the only moments he has to look forward to is his enemy saying a few words to him. He spends the rest of his time hoping for a good day.

Zuko stares at his hands and he feels that little burning sensation in his throat again and he rolls onto his side, clutching his hands against his chest, gritting his teeth. It hurts to feel again and he fights it off.

Once upon a time all Zuko wanted was his own honor. Now all he wants is to know what he wants. What he is. Who he will be.

Mostly, he wants to just understand. He wants someone to understand him. He thinks now that once, long ago, Katara might have understood him.

Then he realizes that she is 'Katara' to his mind now.

* * *

**notes:** this is one of my favorite conversations between Zuko and Katara in this fic. Just because we have no real idea what Katara is thinking and we've already established that Zuko... does not come to the best conclusions. Thus he cannot be trusted. Oh, and Zuko is an existentialist. Ironically, I hate existentialists. 

**reviews**

**DirtWaterFoxPrince:** hehe, guess it's a little too late to accept the Easter wishes, huh? Ah... anyway, thanks!

**Hollywoodland:** this is angsty to da maX. I _even_ find it extremely angsty, and all I write is angst.

**Story Weaver1:** that's always my thing about Zutara. If it happens, it's gotta happen _very, very slowly_ because these two mostly hate each other. If Zutara ever happens on the show, it have to be played so subtly or I won't buy it. They can't be one day like "zomg! I love you!". It's gotta happen so slowly that by the time it finally happens, we don't even notice it. But that's just me. XD

**Kitty Elkabush:** and I assure you, there is more Zutara interaction to come, then we'll go back to Zuko reflecting on himself, and then we'll go back to Zutara. Halfway through writing this I realized that it was more a story about "growing up" than me venting my anger at the season finale.

**Renn Skye: **well, some people get mad at authors who write these pieces without any other goals than self-satisfaction. And I'd be honored to think I inspired _anything_ from this. And for the Zuko not talking thing, I don't have him silent because of his soullessness but rather because he doesn't see the point of talking anymore. After all, what worthwhile conversation is he going to have? Iroh's dead. With Katara, Zuko will start speaking more and more. But at the same time, he still doubts the worth of words. Plus, he never does speak a whole lot in the series, does he? I mean, he talks more in the series than he does here, but he's more of the big, strong silent type than anything else since season one's end.

**DeafLizgon:** that's my one main beef with this "new age" emo kids. They give a bad name to angst. Angst isn't about cutting yourself and listening to Hawthorne Heights. Most people today can't write a decent angst story without throwing in all that cliche wrist-cutting and such. Not that some of those stories can't be moving, but can't a story have angst without all the teenage, emo wrist-slicing? As for Katara, I really, really love her character. She's a good person, and you know, but she's in a world where she might have to do not so good things to survive. The rant about "murderers" she had was more her trying to justify what she had done, since it goes directly against what she believes. But, as Zuko says, it's war and that's what war calls for... I depress myself... wow.


	8. Eclipse

** Disclaimer:** _pah-lease_

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... dispair and, therefore, die

**Author's:** and so the Solar Eclipse... I'm not actually short of the time frame that they have for the Solar Eclipse anyway (I know it's in the summer) so I took a little artistic liscene! Don't kill me!

**

* * *

** **/VIII: Eclipse/  
**

_"this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine"_  
-"The Tempest"

* * *

Zuko can feel it. Feel the ripple along the air. His power is already being drawn away from him. He could feel the heady sense of nothingness descend upon him. The fire he automatically conjured up is dim and little in the center of his palm.

_The Solar Eclipse._

He stands and cranes his neck toward his window. Sunlight is streaming in and he lifts out his hand to touch it. The warmth does not greet him but he doesn't move his hand. He is fascinated with the way the sunlight highlights the lines on his palm.

Today is something new. Today, for a brief moment in time, there will be no Firebenders. There will be no such thing. Their very existence will be over and ended and done as the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

It makes his stomach jump with butterflies and he feels odd as he plants his other hand against the rags covering his torso.

His father is not a Firebender today. He is not the Fire Lord. There is no such thing as _fire_ today. There is only water and air and earth.

The Avatar has already sneaked into the Fire Nation. Katara never says so, but Zuko knows. He can sense the intrusion of his city, of his home. The Earthbender has bent the metal to her will and they are waiting for the Day of Black Sun.

But all he feels is tired. He is tired of everything and he is ready for it to be over. Whatever is happening, he prays for its zenith and then he prays for everything to be over and done and finished.

Too many things seem to happen to him and he slides down the wall, ignoring each thought that rages in his head. Because what does it matter? Nothing has mattered for so long that Zuko has forgotten what do with emotions.

So he sits in the dark, watching the sunlight bounce on the gray stones that have become his home and hearth, waits.

It seems all he's good at anymore is waiting.

Ice slides firmly over his stomach and Zuko sucks in a breath. He knows now, that any minute, the darkness will swarm them all. He is ready. He is ready to let Zuko go, let who he is fade into the darkness.

He just isn't sure if he will be ready to let Zuko back in.

The door opens and for moment, the ice melts. Zuko thinks that this is Katara and she at least will talk to him. Zuko can't remember what companionship feels like, or what understanding feels like, but he thinks that it is something akin to the way he sits and talks with Katara.

Then he stops himself.

Katara is not coming today. He already knows that. And he braces himself for it.

It is a soldier and he glares down at Zuko. Then he snaps, "Get up and follow me." And walks way, leaving the door open.

Zuko has learned not to question and he stands and he follows the soldier. Down the dungeon floor, toward the spiraling stairs, out into the palace that Azula had so proudly claimed as her own. Down the hallways he has walked countless times but never memorized.

Then they are out in the courtyard and Zuko remembers Iroh and his swinging feet. His stomach does something strange, but Zuko's brain does not recognize it and he stares at the scaffold they still have not taken down.

Are they going to hang him, too?

He wonders if they have had a trial like Katara said and he simply wasn't a part of it. He's ready, though, he supposes. It's hard to tell anymore but he thinks that if they kill him now he will be ready for it.

She stands feet away from it, her eyes cast to the sky. He wonders what she sees in the deep blue. She is a curious creature, he finds when he has the energy and the will to think on her.

Her eyes drift toward him and she nods to the soldiers that keep Zuko's arms locked in their grip. "He's fine," she tells them and they let him go.

Without saying anything to him, she turns her head back to the sky. Zuko almost asks why she trusts him not to attack, not to run, not to hurt her and try to save his father from his impending doom.

But, he remembers, she has been reading him for endless days now. Every time she frowns at him she is gauging his memories, gauging his character, gauging the man he is now, today.

And she knows that he has nowhere else to go.

"I thought you'd might want to see it," she says when he takes not a step closer. She is still looking to the sky. "The Solar Eclipse."

His feet almost take him toward her, but he can't quite do it. She exists in a different world, a better world. His is dank and dark and a prison. She is sky blue and light. Katara is the light and he has shunned it long ago—three months and two days and ten hours—and he can never, ever cross to her.

Maybe, once, he would have been able to. But he chose Azula, not Iroh, and Katara remains endlessly away from him.

She turns and looks at him. Then she starts to walk toward him and Zuko just watches, surprised how easily she takes the distance, as if it _isn't_ some bridgeless gap no one can ever cross.

Suddenly, the sky is dark and infinite in its abyss.

He cannot breathe. He gives a sputtering gasp of pain as the fire in his body extinguishes and there is nothing, nothing, _nothing_. inside him. Even the waiting leaves. Zuko is completely and utterly alone, grasping the rags covering his chest as he hovers on the brink of death and utter coldness.

There is a hand on his shoulder and there are soothing words in his ear and Zuko wants to push them away because he already knows that he is the last person who deserves them. But he needs them too much and they are his rock in the storm.

"Uncle?" he calls, unable to stop himself.

For an endless moment, he hovers, just on the edge of a spiraling abyss. His breath leaves his mouth in a heavy fog. His whole body shivers from the pain and cold and the utter emptiness that suddenly fills him.

Zuko is a unwritten tablet. A blank slate. He is nothing because he is all fire and fire does not exist today and he feels himself beginning to melt with the knowledge, the feeling, the emptiness. The frigid ice and the suffocating darkness.

Will it never stop?

Then the warmth returns and the hand leaves, but he misses the hand more than the fire. He gasps as life reenters his veins and the sun brightens the sky once more. It had only been a few moments, not even an hour, but Zuko feels as if he has suffered eternity.

The chill is so permanent in his veins now.

Katara is bent down by his face, almost touching, but not quite. She will never touch him, Zuko knows, because he is the enemy and she is the hero of the story and her fingers will never caresses him, never touch him like she once did in a cave under Bai Sing Se.

He wonders, even now, if the Avatar has taken down the Fire Lord—_father_. If the man-child and his fierce friends have killed his father on his throne as he suffered, like Zuko suffered, the effect of being completely empty of all things. Even life giving fire. If there is nothing left of his father but blood and death. If he is like Azula and Ty Lee and Mai.

"Are you alright?" she asks and her face is flushed with power and awe. Zuko remembers then that the sun has been eclipsed by the moon and that her powers are heightened to a degree she has never before felt.

To her it is ultimate life. To him it is death.

When they look away, they both know the answer.

No, he is not alright. He will never be alright. Maybe he never was.

* * *

**notes:** this, in my mind, marks the end of the second arc of this story. I've split KoN into three sections you see, each dealing with a different stage of Zuko's "life journey". Which one is next? You'll see. XD

**reviews**

**DeafLizgon** I'm always trying to keep Zuko away from the "common emo" kids, because they're all just so boring, you know? And for the OCs thing, OCs are fine as long as they're engaging and interesting. And not a Mary-Sue. As long as they don't take destroy the actual fandom than I don't see a problem with it. XD

**Kitten at Heart** thanks! I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

**Kirihana** Shakespeare actually fits in very well with Avatar, if you've read any of the plays. I think Richard III is one of the best plays for a Avatar translation. I mean, c'mon, family drama, betrayal, death, warring nations?

**bonehead4i**: yay for anonymity! It actually comes in handy, I've found. Continue to enjoy!

**Hollywoodland** hehehe, would you believe me if I told you that I'm a romantic at heart?

**Story Weaver1** well, I can't buy Zutara unless it happens very slowly. So slowly, it almost doesn't. And I think that season three is going to be very difficult for Kataang (friendship or otherwise) merely because it seems like Aang's maturity level is finally going to be catching up with his actual age, which can be a bitch. We'll just have to see what happens to Aang, and everyone else.

**Kitty Elkabush** ah, thank you. I'm glad it's living up to your expectations.

**catho** one of the things I really came to enjoy about writing this was the sheer fact that we are constantly stuck with Zuko. Whatever the other characters are thinking, we won't know because our POV is limited to what Zuko can see and feel. So in order to get any hint of what anyone else is feeling, we all have to read between the lines. Or, you know, be me.

**Ava-what:** yeah, this is angst to the mAx fo' realz. And I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as you did the rest!


	9. King

**Disclaimer:** how about we do something different this time around, k? I own everything. That's right. Everything. It's all mine. Bring on the lawsuits (ah, but not really).

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... dispair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** consider this the end of the second arc in KoN. Because I like to give my works arcs. Helps me focus. Say yay! We're on the final one! This one is quite a bit longer than the previous two. Also it starts to focus more on Zuko's life _post_ Avatar series (which I think will be when they defeat Ozai).

**

* * *

/IX: King/**

_"I go, and it is done; the bell invites me"  
_-"Macbeth"

* * *

Katara does not come with food that day. Zuko expects nothing less and he waits patiently in his cell for her return. She has things on her mind, he understands. She has to worry about the Avatar now.

His cell has never seemed smaller to him than that day. He tries to stand and tries to stretch but in the end merely curls up on his thin cot, slides the thin sheet over his shivering body, and stares at the door.

No one comes to see him the next day either. He watches as sunlight moves across the stones and he cannot forget that moment of bone-chilling horror when he could not feel the fire in his body.

To comfort himself he keeps a fire lit in his hand and watches the flame dance.

It bounces over Katara's face, pale despite her tan, when she enters the cell late that night. He knows not to get up and he knows she will not stay long. She does not even carry food for him.

"Your father's dead," she says and then, quickly, leaves before he can react to the news.

Zuko remains stretched out on his cot. His mind plays her sentence over and over again in his head. _Your father's dead. Your father's dead. Your father's…_ he frowns and mulls over it but cannot comprehend it fully.

His father? Dead? Ozai, the Fire Lord. Who banished him? Who gave him a scar and shame? His father who is all power and unbending and unforgiving. His father who wanted him dead, who was willing to embrace him again…

_My father is dead,_ Zuko thinks and rolls onto his side. He closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

When he wakes up he touches his cheeks. They are damp and wet and he is not sure why. He cannot remember where the water came from, but his throat is sore and his stomach is constricted. He thinks it is because he is hungry.

But he gets up and walks over to the wall. The stone is in his hand without him even knowing it. He marks up the calendar once more. The Solar Eclipse day is marked down and he touches it.

Beside the day he puts down the name _Ozai_. Then he goes backwards, counting the days. _Azula, Mai,_ and _Ty Lee_ are added. _Iroh_ is added shortly after them.

He stares at them and touches each word and sits there until darkness falls again.

The door opens and he looks up at Katara as she comes in, a torch in one hand. He manages to stand as she approaches him, her eyes boring into his, tearing apart whatever she thinks he has inside him.

Then she says, "Come with me."

And he follows her out of the dungeon and up into the palace and out the entrance and down into Ba Sing Se until they are cloaked in darkness with only Katara's flickering torch as guidance.

"Go," she says to him, motioning down the dark path with her burning stick. "Follow this out to the gate, it'll be open and they'll let you leave."

"Why?" he asks because he cannot believe it. He does not. He is supposed to die in Bai Sing Se. Die like Iroh and Azula and Mai and Ty Lee. _Die._

"The war is over," she tells him and then her eyes spark and she believes it. She sucks in a breath because she believes. "The _war_ is _over_. There are no such things as enemies anymore. Just go, Zuko."

"He told you to do this," Zuko guesses and there is no need to ask who.

She shakes her head. "No, but he'll understand. He's the _Avatar_."

He takes the torch from her and watches as the firelight flickers across her hair, down her cheeks, into her eyes. He watches as she watches him and they stand, facing each other, everything changed forever.

Suddenly, he wishes he had realized that she was beautiful earlier. He wishes now that he could change so many things. Too many things. And he grips the torch tight and stares at her hard.

Katara blinks and for a moment he thinks there is something. Just a flash, just a tiny spark, and she almost understands him now. Perhaps that was why she had looked at him so intensely before. Perhaps she was trying to understand.

No one has tried to understand in so long.

"Hurry," she hisses to him, looking over her shoulder. "The soldiers won't be happy when they find out."

"Will you be alright?"

"Of course, I will be. They won't hurt me. But they'll hurt _you_." She's already turning back toward the palace. "Now go."

He doesn't want to. He wants to stay and he wants to follow her back. It is the strangest thing, but he stands on the brink of inevitable change and he doesn't want to do it alone. He doesn't want to redefine himself without someone. Without _her_.

But he stops himself from calling out to her.

Some things need to be done alone. Zuko has come to understand this.

Once—three months, four days and twenty hours ago—he severed himself from the people who cared. Katara, who might have understand then, was lost to him and Iroh was gone soon after.

The Avatar even before that.

Slowly, Zuko walks away and he is reminded of the deep, careful steps Iroh had taken as he was brought up to the scaffold. For a moment he cannot move and cannot breathe and he closes his eyes.

Then he starts walking.

With Katara's torch as a beacon he guides himself down the path. He doesn't worry about the guards seeing him. He is beyond that now. He is walking down a path and no one can stop him, not ever.

Once, his uncle asked him to look in his heart and choose the right path.

Zuko does not have a heart but he cannot help but feel that he is, at last, on the right path, heading in the right direction.

Three months ago he had started a metamorphous and perhaps now it is the time to finally finish it.

And though his stomach turns in nerves and emotions Zuko can't name—it has been so long—he thinks he is almost ready.

A part of him still wishes Katara was by his side, because she halfway understands him and he thinks that it would be nice to have someone understand him because he doesn't understand himself.

Maybe one day, he will understand himself.

It is nearly dawn when Zuko leaves Ba Sing Se. He remembers coming, in hiding and ashamed and angry, and he will remember leaving, odd and cold and empty and alone. These are the memories he will keep.

He tells himself that he will make things come together. His is just jagged pieces of mirrors and stones but he will find a way to fit them together.

Katara has given him a second chance. There is no Fire Nation anymore. There is no Fire Lord Ozai or Fire Princess Azula or exiled Prince Zuko. There is no war. There are no enemies.

They can all start over. This time, Zuko chooses the reset.

* * *

**notes:** yes, say goodbye to Katara for a bit. But I promise she'll be back. And I always keep my promises. And, you know what? I think I've just killed everyone who isn't a main central character (or Zuko) off…no, wait! There's _is_ the Earth King! 

**reviews **

**Hollywoodland: **my life is so completely filled with not-angst I think I try to compensate with my stories. XD Because that's how I roll. Happy stories are really good time, and I swear to God one day I will write a multi-chaptered fic without a trace of angst. One day.

**Story Weaver1** actually, Katara didn't heal him. Zuko's pain came from the absence of sun, which allowed him to create fire. Once the solar eclipse passed, Zuko healed on his own. Katara would've, o' course! And, unfortunately, Toph isn't in any of the upcoming chapters, but I can honestly see her and Zuko become buddy-buddies if it weren't for the whole "enemies" thing.

**Ava-what:** well, yes, it's hard to imagine, at this point, Katara just forgiving Zuko because he's hot or because he's miserable. Well, obviously, he's going to be miserable. He just sold his uncle up the river without a paddle. Katara is a compassionate woman, but I think she can, and will, hold a grudge for along time. Unless Aang says something.

**Renn Skye:** I do appreciate all your advice, and Zuko _will_ take more (or, at least, he'll take as much as he does in the series). Throughout the previous chapters however, Zuko had pretty much given up, on life and living, and he found the whole world pointless so he didn't see the point in talking.

**DirtWaterFoxPrince:** yes, this story _is_ dark, isn't it?

**truth12:** oh yeah, I think I'd blow a fuse if I ever saw anything even _remotely_ like this happening on the TV show. It's targeted at kids for gosh sake! It just so happens that adults like it, too.

**Kitty Elkabush** I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. I really put a lot of time and effort into the symbolism in each chapter, so I'm glad it's paying off. XD And super-extra thanks for making me your featured author! I'm honored!

**catho** things were intense for a while, but now after this they're going to slow done. But it's a good thing because everyone deserves a break once in a while, right?

**jellyjay** yup. I sure did. :D

**BlueDove** thanks. It does my heart good to see that this fic is accepted to nicely. Since I was so awful and killed nearly everyone off, I thought maybe it wouldn't be.

**mah:** I'm certaintly happy to see that you're reading between the lines. You're right, there is a lot of symbolism and hidden meanings in this story. I'm never going to tell you what Katara is thinking, or what she did think. It's up to you to decide!

**akeyana** well I love how you can fit nearly all characters within Avatar into a Shakespearen play. _Richard III_ fits real well, I think, as does _Caesar_ and _Hamlet_. And who needs to rip Zuko's character to shreds to write angst? He does that just fine already.


	10. Nothing

**Disclaimer:** nope 

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** we're really chugging right along here, aren't we? I'm pleased with this chapter, even though it was difficult to right (again). Now Zuko can _finally_ learn to grow up!

* * *

**/X: Nothing/**  


_"what's gone and what's past help should be past grief"_  
-"The Winter's Tale"

* * *

He finds their graves along Be Sing Se's walls as he begins his journey to… he does not know where he is going. Only that he is going and whatever he has been waiting for is out there somewhere. 

But before he can even begin Zuko finds their graves. It's his first milestone and he stares at them for a long time, as the sun breaks across the new day and the world is, for the first time in a hundred years, free from war.

Already he can feel the hum of it in the air. The whisper of change following through on the wind. Zuko is caught up in it for a moment and he thinks he will fly with it. But just for a moment, because he is tethered to the earth. He is a child of dirt.

And now he is an orphan.

They are tiny little stones carved with names. Iroh's is the first he notices. At first he is surprised Azula bothered with burying him. But then he remembers that Azula would follow Fire Nation custom and she would bury the once great general because that is what Azula is. Prideful and cruel and loyal and traditional.

It is a simple tombstone. _Iroh, General._ But it is more than Zuko had thought he would have gotten and for a moment he can do nothing but stare at him, his hand itching to touch the stone, to be close to his uncle again.

Because he wants to cling and cry and beg, he sits down across from the grave and stares at it long and hard. He remembers Iroh. Iroh teaching him and staying with him and supporting him and loving him… and looking at him with such great disappointment.

Zuko's hand grips the tattered shirt over his chest and he sucks in a hard breath, his vision wet. He blinks back the moisture in his eyes and feels his throat go dry. For a moment, he starts to—he thinks—cry but it's gone.

Beside him are three other graves for the three other people that Katara had ordered buried. Buried because Katara knows the difference between necessity and cruelty. Even her enemies deserve respect.

_Ty Lee._

It hurts to think about them. Not because he holds fond memories of them—he doesn't; he can't; he hates them—but they're dead and he's not and Zuko will never, ever be sure why.

The shattered pieces of what makes him up—he doesn't think it's his soul; he doesn't have a soul or a heart—shudder and he thins his lips in pain.

Then he stands he walks away from the graves. He can't leave, though. He's not ready to let them go, not yet. Somehow he needs to cling to what they once were, what they used to symbolize to him.

The past. He cannot let it go.

He finds flowers a little off, spurts of color growing in the very earth the Fire Nation's drill had destroyed. He picks them, just a couple, and walks back to the graves.

Each tombstone gets one. He sets them gently on the stone and watches the wind ruffle the petals, almost soothing the severed plant, almost whispering to him that everything is going to be okay, at last, at last.

But he isn't done.

Zuko is not an Earthbender and so the task is hard. He finds a stone farther down the wall of Ba Sing Se and he struggles to bring it back to the other graves, sweating and cursing and breathing hard but never stopping. _Never stopping._

Finally, the stone is in place. He props it up beside Iroh's grave and pulls out the chipped stone he has tucked into his pants. He begins to carve. It is a long, tedious task and the rock is nearly impossible to indent but Zuko does not give up.

His task is not finished until the moon is high.

It is done, though, and he stands back and looks at it. It is a haggard grave, nothing compared to the other four, but it is all that Zuko can do and he knows that he cannot simply do nothing.

The grave says _Ozai_.

That is it. Just a simple name. Not father or brother or king. Just Ozai. But that is more than he will get from anyone else and it is all Zuko can do for his father.

He picks one last flower and gives it to Ozai's grave.

They are just five graves against the high, impenetrable walls of Ba Sing Se and no one will remember who they are or who buried them or why they were buried outside the city. No one except Zuko.

This is all he can do for them. But it is more than anyone else will. No one will give them flowers or look at their graves or trace the inscriptions of their names.

So he does. Zuko can do this for them if he can do nothing else.

The last name he traces is Iroh's and for a moment Zuko is breathless staring down at the name of the only man who saw him as a son. The man he betrayed and killed and turned away from.

The only man who understood him.

"I'm sorry," he says and something inside him moves. It burns up his throat as he bends down onto his knees. He wraps his arms awkwardly around the stone and wishes—_wishes, wishes, wishes_—that it was flesh and solid and warm.

He manages to give it a clumsy kiss before he pushes himself to his feet. With nothing on his back and nothing in his mind he stumbles away from the grave stones. They are just pale etchings in the moonlight now.

Somehow, looking at them, he knows that he will not come back. Ba Sing Se is a place that will become a memory and nothing more to him. He will never make a journey back to visit the graves.

But it isn't necessary. Each grave will be a stone in his stomach and it will weigh him down and remind him and never leave him.

Zuko is bound up and breathing with the memories of those who are dead.

Again he feels as he had three months ago, like he is waiting. He wonders if he will ever find what he is looking for, if there is something out there meant to be his fit, or if he is merely a shell doomed to travel an endless world, never settling, never peaceful, forever looking back.

Something tells him not to look back. The future's the key.

"Uncle?" he calls and there is no answer. Zuko is tired, too tired to even think of walking. He wants to curl up beside the graves and sleep and join the dirt.

Yet his feet move and they bring him farther and farther away from the graves. From Iroh and Azula and Mai and Ty Lee. Farther away from Ozai. Towards a bleak and unknown future and he cannot decide if he is afraid.

His journey doesn't halt until Ba Sing Se is nothing but a small line on the horizon. Zuko does not know where he is going but he will allow his feet to take him there. It's time to try again. To finish what was started in a small room in Ba Sing Se.

It hurts to think about Iroh, but Zuko forces himself to imagine his face and his smile and the disappointment in his eyes.

This time, Zuko will be on the right path. He will see to it.

Katara told him to start over. It's time he begun.

* * *

**notes: **now, finally, Zuko can get on to some much needed redemption, and maybe a few life lessons along the way. XD God knows he needs it, doesn't he? 

**Hollywoodland** my funny stories are the only thing without angst in my work, too. I guess because in humor, I refuse to take anything seriously. And never be afraid to post anything, there are people here who give constructive criticism believe it or not. It's the best way to get better!

**Beetle: **thanks! This fic was mostly created because I had a big "WFT is going on in your head?" moment after the season 2 finale. So I went into his head. XD

**Kitty Elkabush** I didn't want to seperate them, but I understand that both Zuko and Katara, were they're at now, couldn't move anything farther together. The war's only just ended, and Zuko's got some emotional baggage he needs to sort through. If they got together now, it wouldn't last. They'd end up destroying each other. They both need to live a little without all the shadows that had previously hung over them before they can do _anything_ together. Or, at least, that was my justificiation.

**BlueDove** there's actually several points in the next few chapters were you'll probably be "you could've ended it right there!" but trust me when I say that I was waiting for that one perfect moment where the story could draw itself for circle. That's when I end it.

**catho** oh, it's not! When I reach the end, I'll have a nice big "FIN!" sign at the bottom. That's won't happen for the next five chapters!

**akeyana** oh, no. I get you. I love chiched fics, too, but sometimes you find out of like twenty of them one with this original idea and, even if it doesn't end the way you like it, you're can't help but go "wow, that's so good!" And, yes, the torch _was_ symbol. So glad you caught it! And, hopefully, I fixed the "despair" thing... I'm so... silly sometimes.

**Story Weaver1**yup, you guessed it. Zuko's going on a Walkabout.

**Paradigm08** why, thank you. Glad you're enjoying. I never really realized how much fun it would be to pick apart Zuko's mind until I started this fic... and now I can't seem to stop. :D


	11. Free

**Disclaimer:** nope 

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** oh, I had fun with this chapter! Finally, Zuzu, we're getting somewhere. Oh, and Jin's here, too. And not in a negative light? What crazy alternate universe have we stepped into?

**

* * *

/XI: Free/**

_"there are more things in heaven and earth"  
_-"Hamlet" 

* * *

Zuko travels endlessly. He does not keep count of the days where his feet take him across the earth. There is no point. He will walk until he finds what he is looking for, even if he does not know what it is. 

He is trying to fit himself in the new world. Trying to define himself after so long of _being_ defined. He tries not to think because thinking hurts. He eats only what people with pitying eyes give him.

It is a fast and a journey. He lives off what he deserves and he never stops walking. His feet will take him to where he needs to go and then Zuko will finally understand who he is, what he is.

News of the Avatar reaches him as he journeys. He catches bits and pieces of the murmurs as he eats what people have been kind enough to give him and then he moves on. He cannot stop. He can never stop.

There is a young boy ruling the Fire Nation now. The same young boy who taught the Avatar to Firebend. The Avatar keeps an eye on the proceedings but the boy is capable and willing and ready.

Zuko thinks that he wishes him the best of luck.

The brother, the Avatar's fierce companion, the murderer of Ty Lee, is said to have gone home or gone to where it is cold. But Zuko also hears rumors of him being at Kyoshi Island, in mourning, and he does not know which to believe. But he thinks that the brother has gone home, because home is always a safe heaven.

Except Zuko has no home.

The blind Earthbender who bends metal to her will now sits on the throne of Ba Sing Se. She oversees the last destruction of the Dai Li. The Earth King, people whisper, has given up and gone into mediation with a guru.

His ears strain for news of her, but there is nothing whispered of Katara. No mention of the Waterbender who clucked around the Avatar like a worried mother. She has disappeared and Zuko feels more alone than ever every time he thinks about it.

But he keeps on going. He does not allow him to think about it.

Four months after starting his journey, Zuko meets with Jin.

She is just as he remembers her—but he only remembers her now, when he sees her again—but she is slight with child and living in a small hut outside a small town miles and miles away from Ba Sing Se.

When she sees him, she stops, her laundry dropping from her hands. For a moment, Zuko thinks that she will scream and run. But, suddenly, her face transforms and she smiles at him, motioning him forward.

"Zuko," she says.

He stops and stares at her. She knows his name.

"Word got out after the Fire Nation took over," she explains but doesn't seem enraged at him, demanding explanations or demanding he leaves. She is just looking at him. "And then the Avatar told us who you were and that you were alive."

"I'm just moving on," he tells her and Jin laughs.

"But you just got here!" she proclaims and steps forward, the wind ruffling her long, dark hair. "Don't you want to come in and catch up?"

"You won't me to stay? But I'm—"

"The former Prince of the Fire Nation?" Jin supplies and then laughs. "I suppose you didn't hear the Avatar's speech. We aren't enemies any more, Zuko. We're all just survivors. We have to last past hate go. Come in and have some tea."

_Tea._ Zuko's stomach clenches and he wants to run away and hide and never think about tea again. It hurts too much. Hurts his head and stomach and lungs. But his feet are already taking him to Jin and she is already gripping his hand and leading him into her small home.

He needs to be here.

So he tells her and he can't seem to stop. He tells what has happened to him, to Iroh, what he did, what happened to his sister and father and everyone he has ever touched. He tells her about the Avatar and Katara and he can't stop the words from flowing.

For four months, he has wanted to tell someone and now he does.

Jin nods and understands and he learns that she was crazed to find a war had gone on without her noticing and that she escaped Ba Sing Se after the coup and married a fellow refugee one month after, in desperation and need to love and to be near someone.

Zuko understands.

"So you're going on a walkabout?" she asks as they sip tea at her small table, Jin rubbing her stomach every so often.

"Walkabout?"

"A spiritual journey. When someone travels until they find the meaning in their life." Jin sums it up perfectly and Zuko can only nod. "You'll find your place, Zuko."

"I don't know. Maybe I don't deserve to."

"Would your uncle blame you, Zuko?" she asks and at his blank look adds, "He loved you like a son, didn't he? You made a mistake. We all make mistakes. But you're trying to redeem yourself, your trying to understand who you are. He would understand that and he wouldn't withhold forgiveness."

"But I—"

"Zuko," Jin interrupts, cupping his hand with her own, smiling at him. "The past is the past. We can't change it. You can feel bad about, you can carry it with you all your life, your can use it as a daily reminder, but the point is your alive. Your uncle would want you to find a way to live with yourself."

"Live with myself?" Zuko remembers Iroh's last look to him. And he thinks now that it hadn't been disappointment in his uncle's eyes. It had been hope.

Iroh had loved him so completely and so utterly that he had forgiven Zuko as he was hanged.

All of a sudden, Zuko has his head on the table and he is sobbing. Raspy, thick sobs that tear apart his throat. Jin's hand is on his head and she is murmuring and he is weeping openly and he misses Iroh so much.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

And then he thinks he hears a voice say: _it's okay, Zuko._

For a long time he sits there, countless hours, a small eternity, just weeping. He has stored up too much bitter salt and now he spills it out onto his hands, Jin watching, baring witness. Whatever is inside Zuko needs to be out or he will be chained and never, ever fulfill what Iroh had wished for once, long ago.

"I can't stay," he tells Jin when the sobs subside and he is standing, his whole body filled with purpose. "I have to go."

Jin smiles at him. "Yes, I know. You need to find yourself, Zuko."

She gives him a rucksack with food and water and she hugs him, her abdomen bumping against his stomach. And Zuko touches the unborn baby and feels life kicking underneath his fingers and he thinks he finally understands why they continue on after all has been lost.

For this, just this.

_I'm going to live with myself, Uncle. I promise. I'll learn who I am, who you thought I was._

He walks away from Jin's home, not apart of it, not apart of anything yet, and she watches him from her threshold, framed by light. Her hand is lifted in a wave but he doesn't wave back.

For the first time—seven months, ten days, and forty two hours—he feels free.

_Free_.

* * *

**  
notes:** I actually like Jin. Not with Zuko, obviously, but I like her character. Zuko needed some cuddling and there she was! Yay! The kid on the Fire Nation throne I mentioned… not really important. I just don't think Iroh is going to be getting around to teaching Aang firebending as it stands and I have a theory that a new character is going to be introduced to teach Aang. So I made him a young boy and I put him on the throne. But someone did mention that they thought it might be the kid who helped free Appa from the circus, and that works, too. XP I imagine Aang's speech being something grand and wonderful, ala Aragon from LotR or Yuna from FFX. Of course, Zuko didn't get to hear this amazing speech, but it'll be alluded two a few more times. Walkabouts are from Australian/New Zealand and the like. Boys had to go one their own "walkabouts" when they turned thirteen to enter manhood. It normally lasted only six months, but Zuko's is going to last a lot longer than that. Walkabouts can also refer to "wanderlust", the urge people sometimes have to travel without any plan or any knowledge of where they are going. Obviously, both definitions fit with Zuko. 

**reviews**

**ohsoxalive** oh, Zuko agngst is the funnist to write! I super twisted because I'll actually say out loud, "now, what is the best way to screw with Zuko?" And angst is a bit like crack. You now crack isn't good for you, but you keep coming back for me.

**Hollywoodland** Ozai's not buried there. Like, where would Zuko get the body? Ozai's decaying in the Fire Nation. What Zuko did was make him an honoury grave of remembrance, because he figures no one else is going to take the time to bury him or give him anything of the sort.

**catho:** thanks! It does start to get better for Zuko.

**Kitty Elkabush** Yup, the graves were an important symbol in last chapter. As were the flowers Zuko picked. And, no, Ozai isn't buried there. It's just an honoury grave Zuko put up in honor of his father. And that was character development abound.

**Story Weaver1** I love irony. And it was ironic, of course, Zuko doesn't see it that way. He was just using what's was on hand. And he's pretty much 'Zuko Alone' from here on out.

**Zephyr Zucchini** I have a very love-hate relationship with Zuko. The kid keeps making bad decisions (and keeps from letting my OTP happen) but he's really got a heart of gold underneath, and is just trying to earn the love and respect of his father.


	12. Value

**Disclaimer:** nothing, do I own 

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** instead of dragging this out and out (to about thirty chapters, I figure) I decided to basically summarize what those thirty some-odd chapters would have entailed. Honestly, as much as I like to see Zuko redeeming himself, that would have been a bit _too_ much. Plus, it's nice to leave things up to the readers' imaginations, no?

* * *

**/XII: Value/  
**

_"I am I, howe'er I was begot"_  
-"King John"

* * *

It takes two years. 

Zuko journeys and he learns. It is a walkabout. It is an endless search that leaves him exhausted and depleted and ready to give in, but he never stops. He remembers and he keeps going.

He grows just as the world grows. He recovers as it recovers. He helps rebuild an Air Temple and he toils for anyone who needs his help.

For two years the earth is his bed. He sleeps when he simply cannot move anymore and he eats whenever he can find food. He comes and goes. Zuko never stays long. He is always moving, always heading off to that one place that will make him completely whole.

The Avatar has changed the world and people whisper reverently about him. About the new Fire Nation, headed by a young king, and the Earth Kingdom and its powerful leader. About the Water Tribe slowly recovering.

But Zuko is content to shift stones for those who need to it, to rebuild things wrecked by his country. To apologize to men and women and children, even if they never really understand _why_.

And Zuko sees that he has a heart and it has begun to beat now, steadily in his chest. It has been sleeping quietly in him, locked away and buried deep. Buried so far down that he was tricked into believing he had none.

That is what Iroh saw and that was why Iroh had been disappointed in Zuko. Because Zuko had a heart, but he didn't know how to listen to it.

So Zuko listens now.

Sometimes, he will shed tears over his uncle's body. He will be sleeping on the earth, thinking of Iroh and what should have become of them, and the part of him that mourns and cannot ever forget cries in regret.

Every morning, though, he rises with the sun and continues on. Zuko has learned to keep on going, to never stop.

Iroh would never want him to stop.

The earth grows and it revives. The Avatar comes and goes, never staying in one place, seeing that everyone is learning to live in the world he has made. Zuko never runs into the Avatar and he is half-relieved, unsure of what he would say to the boy.

"How'd you get that scar?" a man asks—they're always curious about it—as he and Zuko work to lift a stone up to the very top of an air temple.

"The Fire Nation," Zuko answers and he is not ashamed of his scar. He has learned to live with it and has learned that it is not a mark of exile, but a mark of who he is. Of the man he has become. "My father gave it to me."

Because, now, people have learned to let past hatred go, the man nods and they silently go back to work, rebuilding all that has been lost.

He still carries Jin's rucksack. As a reminder.

Zuko has seen the earth and he has traveled the earth. He has gone across the Earth Kingdom and he has made the woods his home.

But he won't go to the Fire Nation. Somehow he can't. That is the last tether that keeps him in the past.

Still, he grows and he thinks that his uncle would be proud of him if he could see Zuko growing. He's learning, helping, and understanding the world and himself. Zuko has come to understand himself and he makes no apologies for it.

There are things he regrets, things he will always regret, but he has learned to accept the man he is and he has learned that each experience has helped to shape him and without those things he would be nothing.

It is Iroh and Azula and Ozai who makes Zuko who he is.

In that way, they live on. His family is in the way Zuko walks and breathes and talks and listens and sees. They are him, part of him, pieces of his soul.

The fragmented pieces come together. Bit by bit, Zuko learns. Learns about life and breathing and things he had missed when he had been younger, when he had been consumed by fire and war.

Though he never lingers in one place for long, he takes each thing with him. He adds them to a container in his head and it helps to shape him.

From mothers he remembers affection he has forgotten—and he mourns a deep loss that his child-like mind had pushed away—from fathers he learns strength—and he misses and cries and _regrets_ Iroh—and from family he learns warmth—and he wishes that Azula had been able to understand, too.

Each meeting leaves him with something and Zuko allows it to affect him. He embraces it. These life lessons. He travels and he journeys and he is willing to take whatever the heavens see fit to give him.

Then, one day, he is standing in snow.

It is cold on his tattered pants and he shivers once—he has learned to feel again; hot and cold, sadness and joy—and for a moment he thinks about turning around, about heading back.

But he does not. His feet have taken him here and so he continues onward, crunching on snow and ice with his thin shoes. His rucksack is warm against his back and he heaves it heavily onto his shoulder.

This is hardest part of Zuko's journey.

At the same time, it is where he needs to be. Somehow, he senses it. That his journeying has lead him to this very moment, this very singular moment in time, where he is a new man and this is his past.

Everyone must face their past.

And Zuko walks on and he walks into the small village he barely remembers—it's hard to remember memories from another person; another time—and there is a burning sensation in the back of his throat.

The part of him that is still the old Zuko—the betrayer, the murderer, the _Prince_—wants to run away and never face these people again.

The new one steps forward.

They sense him and they come out to meet him. He notes that there are no men in the village anymore—only little boys with wooden sticks for weapons, their faces pale and flashings to fears they shouldn't ever have—and he remembers what Azula had said to him once upon a time.

Their faces are worn and weary and curtained by fur parkas as the wind whips around them. Zuko sees the recognition in each of their eyes, and braces himself for the hate. Once upon a time, he had been their enemy.

He is not sure why he is here, but he understands that this is where he needs to be.

His head is held high. Not as if he were a prince, but as if he were a man who belonged. Who understood himself and his ways and who had come to this place for a purpose, for a reason. Even as the Water Tribe's entirety narrow their eyes at him, Zuko keeps on going.

And then there is Katara, standing right before him, her parka hood pushed down, her dark hair fluttering around her face.

Her face is bright and fierce and beautiful. She isn't what he remembers—she is older, more mature—but he has changed too and there is something comforting in the way she looks at him. She looks right at him, right through him, into his soul like she had over two years ago. She searches for something in him and then she gives a little rueful smile and Zuko thinks she has _found_ it.

Wordlessly, she holds out a hand to him.

Zuko looks at it, then looks at her—at her fiercely beautiful face, at her calm eyes, her patient smile—and takes it. With all eyes on them, Katara leads him deeper into the small, icy village, leads him in welcome, _in it's about time you got here_.

He thinks this is what home feels like.

* * *

**notes: **Yes, two years. Two years between last the chapter and this one. You honestly have no idea how long this thing would have been if I had indeed chronicled two years. Plus, I want you guys to decide how Zuko goes about his redemption, how he grows into manhood. I've got my ideas, of course, but it's so open-ended that I couldn't just _close_ it. Boy, am _I_ lazy. XD 

**reviews**

**Zephyr Zucchini** yeah, the writers sure seemed to spend a lot of time in giving Zuko character development, only to completely destroy it. XD But who am I to question the aweomeness of Bryan and Mike?

**Kitty Elkabush** I liked Jin for that one episode she was there. I think she'd make a great first girlfriend for Zuko. Someone who could help him get a little more human qualities to him, help him connect. Those sorts of things. She also seems like the real motherly type, which is why I made her pregnant. As for Zuko's day counting... whose to say how he measures his days? (or maybe I'm just that bad at math! XD)

**Hollywoodland** haha, lol. I try to give every character the benefit of the doubt. Zuko's a lot stronger than I am, honestly. Because I can't go a day without my computer, either. I go into withdrawel. I need to at least look at it, know it's there, before I can continue my day. My computer is my precious, precious baby.

**ohsoxalive**Jim does make for good character development of other characters. I used her to my advantage, obviously. And Zuko's needed a good cry for a while, hasn't he? You shouldn't keep those things bottled up like that, Zuko! It's unhealthy!

**powderedsugar** thank ya, kindly!

**catho** Dundee? The Aussie? XD I always think of Locke from LOST since he's first flashback episode is called "Walkabout". Because I am a LOST nerd

**Story Weaver1** hate takes too much effort. I much perfer to just ignore them if I don't like them that much. But, normally, I can find some redeeming quality about any charatcer, on any show. If not... I pretend they don't exist! I don't waste my time on hating!

**Ayumi-tenshi** I'm glad I could give you what you wanted. I tried to keep characters as canon as possible. Katara seemed pretty confused about Zuko in "Cave of Destiny" because he turned out to be the opposite of what she thought he was. So she's still trying to figure what's going on with him. XD


	13. Wander

**Disclaimer:** nothing, do I own 

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** yay! _actual_ Zutara! Finally, Zuko winds up right where we all want him to be. XD (though you might very well hate me by the end of this thing... which is soon, by the way).

* * *

**/XIII: Wander/**

_"journeys end in lovers meeting"_  
-"Twelfth Night"

* * *

Katara gives him a small igloo against the wall of the ring of ice that protects the Southern Water Tribe. They both know that it belonged a man and his family, all wiped out, but they do not speak on that.

Clothes—Katara stares at him in shocked, disgusted worry when she sees his thin tunic and thinner pants—are given to him. Thick parkas and pants and snow boots. Things that, once upon a time, he would have raised his nose at.

Zuko suspects they are her father's, but he does not say anything about it.

"How are you?" is the first thing he asks her, as she takes him down the snowy path toward the igloo that Zuko will, thankfully, make his own.

She looks at him and blinks, as if she has never suspected him to inquire. "Alright, I guess. There's… we've had a lot to deal with since the war's end but we're… we're adjusting."

What she meant was: _we're trying to survive without the men we loved_ and Zuko doesn't comment on it. The war is over and they have all lost things. They need to move on.

"Where is your brother?" He barely remembers the brother. All he can really remember is Katara, but when he thinks of Ty Lee—

Normally, he just stops himself.

"He's… he's alright," she says and her voices all but admits that her brother will never, _ever_ be really alright again. "He's down at the Northern Water Tribe, helping it rebuild."

They fall into silence again, but Zuko thinks it is not because they have nothing else to say. He thinks it is because they are comfortable in the silence, her leading and he following. They are both new people, in different places, but somehow they already know each other, recognize each other.

"Why did you come here?" Katara wants to know as she helps him set up a cot. Surviving in the tundra is different from surviving in the Earth Kingdom, and Zuko sees that he is ill equipped for it.

He opens his mouth. He starts to tell her that he came here because he had nowhere else to go, his feet took him here, that this is just where he needs to be. Then he stops and thinks because suddenly it feels like that isn't the truth anymore.

"I'm trying to start over," Zuko answers and has Katara lifting her eyes to his. "But I—I _can't_ do that unless I come back here. There's—" He can't finish it, but Katara understands and she nods to him.

"What do you hope to accomplish?" she wants to know and her eyes are almost teasing, like they are almost friends, and Zuko cannot help but smile a little and he suddenly remembers how long it has been since he has truly smiled…

_At Uncle's tea shop._

But he just shrugs. "What do you need me to do here?" When she merely stares blankly at him, he holds up his hands. "I've learned a few things in the past two years. I'm pretty useful when it comes to manual labor."

"Well… we're mostly old women and young children here," Katara admits and inclines her head. "And it's usually bitter work to farm the fields this late in the winter."

"I'll do it," Zuko says and considers the matter closed.

Katara gives him an odd, thoughtful look. Like she is stepping back for the first time and truly evaluating him. Zuko manages to resist squirming under her gaze.

"Yes, I think you will," she says at last and then bends down to finish making his cot. Zuko watches her, unable to resist.

"How is… the Avatar?"

Again, she looks at him as if he had just said the last thing she has expected him to say. "Aang? He's good." A brief, proud smile crosses her lips and Zuko burns up. No one has ever looked so proud about _him_. "He can't stay in one place very long though. He's always zipping here and there. Someone always _needs_ him."

"Was he… did he understand?"

He is talking about a space of time two years earlier but Katara remembers perfectly. She looks down at her hands and then back at him.

"Yes. Aang… Aang was going to let you go if I didn't," she tells him and surprises him more than anyone else has. "He saw something in you when we—when we took the palace back and he was going to let you go."

Zuko knows what Aang saw. That complete deterioration of the human spirit. It is a place he has struggled hard to keep himself from. He thinks now he is almost free from it. Almost.

"Good," he tells her and looks down at his hands.

She has a thoughtful look on her face again. "Maybe you were right. Maybe you did change." Zuko's eyes meet with hers. "Maybe what happened—maybe it happened for a reason. Maybe it was necessary."

"It doesn't change that I killed him," he answers, not bitter because he has learned not to be bitter over it. But he can't keep the grief out of it. There will always be grief in his voice.

"You didn't kill your uncle, Zuko," she says to him and the way his name rolls off her tongue has him staring at her. "War did."

_War._ Yes, maybe.

All he does is nod and look away. The pain is still a little too sharp, but it is mostly because he cannot believe that someone can understand him. Understand how he feels and understand his uncle and his life and him, just _Zuko_.

When she walks to the door, she touches his shoulder lightly.

"We all get to start over." There is such determination in her eyes and he is amazed someone can look so strong and beautiful all at once. "What—who—we were in the past doesn't matter now."

He grips her hand on his shoulders and the contact surprises both of them. Fire and Water touching. But he doesn't stop her hand and she doesn't pull away.

"No, it doesn't."

They stand feet apart, at a crossroads. They are not sure where they are going, but Zuko thinks that he is ready and this is the true reason why his feet took him here. Like a magnet pull, he was brought back to Katara.

The first person after—after all that happened to simply understand him.

This—and Zuko sucks in a breath as he looks at her—is where he needs to be.

There is a tentative smile on Katara's face and he thinks, maybe, she knows it too. She turns and walks away and slowly and he watches her go because there isn't a whole lot else he can do except watch her go.

Something almost asks him to call her back, but Zuko understands that what he has been given is already more than he deserves.

It is icy cold all around him, but Zuko feels warm. The smile doesn't leave his face as he explores what has become his new home. He will adjust to the weather and the chill and icy glares. Zuko has learned to adjust.

When he breathes he sucks in clean air and for the first time he feels completely whole. Even if it's only for a moment, he at least feels whole. A split second in eternity, that is all he gets and that is all he truly wants.

Zuko faces tomorrow.

* * *

**author's notes:** ALMOST done. Only two chapters left to go! w00t! 

**Reviews**

**Hollywoodland** two years _is_ a long time, but Zuko's Walkabout puts him in the age range of 19-20, which I figure is a good age to start truly being a mature adult. Plus, Zuko's had a lot of things to think about. XD

**Chigirl:** glad you liked it!

**Kitty East** yup, sometimes the laziness can pay off! XP I like to see Zuko opening up more (and since it looks like he's getting everything he wants in Season 3, maybe that'll happen) but still retain that mysterious, brooding Heathcliff attitude. And, yeah, it's definately easier to development a character who actually interacts with others.

**Kirihana** it's always your imagination to run wild, doesn't it? I like when things are a little open-ended.

**dantebascoluver** aw, shucks. I try.

**ohsoxalive** I think half of Zuko's problem is that he judges himself but what other people see him as, not what he hismelf views hismelf as (if that makes sense). I think Zuko would find himself a lot more happier if he lived for himself instead of for his father or the Fire Nation and whatnot. But that's the kind of realization that comes with time.

**Story Weaver1** I like to imagine that Katara got on with her life and did what she had to do after she and Zuko parted way, but at the back of her mind she always hoped he'd come back. When she saw him, it was more like a hope being solidified than an actual surprise. And, yeah, it's nice to know that Iroh would be proud of the man Zuko became.


	14. Labor

**Disclaimer:** nothing, do I own 

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** wow, only a chapter left? This has seriously gone by fast. I mean, it usually takes me months and months to update a single chapter... so this is a big thing.

* * *

**Part XIV: Labor/**

_"I am constant as the northern star"_  
-"Julius Caesar"

* * *

Zuko gets to work. The first thing he knows he must do is the hardest thing he has ever done. It is more because it is painful to him, but it also cuts into his pride, a pride he has slowly built back up over the years.

But he understands what he must do. This is part of _forgiveness_.

He goes to each of their houses. He doesn't ask Katara for their names—though she would have told him—and he goes alone, though he feels her eyes watching him as he approaches each home.

And he tells them he's sorry.

It doesn't matter that he might never have hurt them personally. That is not what matters. Zuko understands his part in the war and understands that he is apologizing to them because there are people he has hurt indirectly. And there are people—_Iroh_—who he can never apologize to.

All he does is bow to them and murmur an apology. Nothing more. He expects nothing from them, because he understand that the heart is not quite so willing to forgive. So all he can do is bow and sincerely apologize and then continue on his way.

That is all Zuko can do, but for the first time—three years, one month, twenty seven days—he feels like it is enough.

They stare at him like he is some foreign object they have never seen before. Some nod to him, others just stare, no one tells him: _it's okay_ or _I forgive you_. But Zuko is lighter with every apology.

"No one's ever done that," Katara tells him and he glances over his shoulder at her. "Apologize for what happened. What we lost."

"I'm—I'm apologizing for _them_, too, Katara," he says, not fiercely, but passionately and determinately. "For Iroh and Azula and Ozai and everyone else. Everyone in the Fire Nation who can't. If they forgive me they have to forgive them, too."

"Maybe that's why they will," Katara says as she gets her thoughtful look on her face.

He goes to the icy, almost dead fields and picks up the hoe he has left there from the day before. It is just a patch of cold, dry land that lingers with the memory and the taste of the men who had once planned to make food grow from the very spot where he now stands.

The land is hard and nearly impossible to crack and harvest, yet Zuko works tirelessly to plant what meager crops these people grow, because they have no men of the village to do it for them.

Katara joins him not long after he starts and he says nothing. The first day it surprised him to find her beside him, her own rake in hand, helping him with the hard labor of the day, but now he has accepted it. And he appreciates her help.

Though it is cold Zuko sweats, it rolls down his back and onto his hand, and Katara looks at him but says nothing. They know his Firebending would make the job easier, but they also know that that is not the point. This labor is part of his journey as well, and he must finish as a man, not a Firebender.

"I didn't think you could do it," Katara admits one day as they both come back as night falls and an even deeper chill sweeps through the land. "I thought you would try, but I didn't think you would be able to do it."

"Do what?" he asks, nearly unconscious from exhaustion. But he is grateful for the feeling. The crops are growing now, spurting little green stalks from the white earth, and he feels that sense of accomplishment.

"Make them understand." She motions to the villagers who wave at them as they return. "To make them accept you."

"They don't accept me," he answers her on a frown, not glancing over because he has already, unknowingly, memorized each line of her face. "But they—they tolerate me."

"It's sad that you can't see it," she muses softly and he thinks, just for a second, that he feels the warmth of her hand touching his. Then it is gone. "But I guess one day you'll realize it."

"Why are you here?" he asks suddenly, halting them both as they come to stand before Katara's home. He knows that she feels that it is empty, even without her telling him. There are signs on her face, little changes of expressions, and he has memorized them all. "Why aren't you… helping the Avatar?"

She smiles at him, kindly, and with understanding toward his question. "I needed to be here," is all she says but he senses the deep underlying meaning of her words.

"Goodnight, Katara," he says as he looks into her eyes, thinking that he could—he could—make a home here if she let him.

"Goodnight, Zuko." Then she is gone, disappearing into her empty, but not cold, home.

Zuko stares after her for a long moment before returning to the place he has made his home in the frozen land of the south.

Sokka returns two days later.

They are walking back from the field, talking lightly, nodding to the villagers that greet them—for a while, they would not say his name, but now Zuko seems to have become a part of their culture—Katara looks toward the front entrance.

"It's—" she starts but trails off and Zuko can't help but wonder where her relationship with her brother has gone, what has been lost.

But some men have lost too many things, and too soon.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Sokka demands, his sword already out—not pointed at Zuko; Sokka knows when not to attack—and it is obvious that he is braced and ready.

"He lives here," Katara answers, stepping forward, almost shielding Zuko. He would not have allowed her to do so, but he understands that this more about them than him. It is about them and whatever rift is between them.

"I want him out," Sokka says and it's final.

"You're not king here!" she returns sharply, hands on hips and eyes sparking with indignation. It's almost like how they used to be, but it is so completely different that it is something to weep over.

Zuko understands, though. Understands what Sokka feels. Once upon a time—when he had been the same age as Sokka—he had felt the same way. He had felt the same thing. Sharp, angry betrayal. Disillusionment with the world, a deep and profound sadness that is so heart wrenching that it only be handled with massive rage.

But Zuko found his way, in time. He learned to live and deal. Sokka will, too. He just needs time. They all just need time.

That is why Zuko steps forward and looks right into Sokka's eyes. Man to man. Not Fire to Water.

"It's alright, I was going to leave soon anyway."

The look in Katara's eyes says that she does not believe him for a moment. "You don't have—" she starts to protest.

"I should move on," he answers and is surprised to find it true. He has made a home here, but he senses he is not done yet with growing, with becoming.

When he walks away, he senses that the last leg of his journey is about to begin. He does not know where it will take him, or where it will leave him, and he hopes that he might end up right back here.

But he knows he cannot ignore this. Ignoring it would be to deny would he needs to do to become the man Iroh—_Katara_—would be proud of.

"Don't you remember what Aang told you?" Katara demands of her brother as Zuko walks away.

* * *

**notes:** don't hate Sokka! I wanted Sokka to be a hitch in not only Zuko's happiness, but the Zutara's happiness as well. But at the same time I didn't want it to be the cliche "zomg! You can't date mah sista! I hate chuu!" It's not because I hate Sokka or anything (I love him!) but it's because even after to years, some wounds just can't be healed. Sokka's the symbol of the hurts that people just can't let go (and maybe shouldn't have to). Remember, all things considered, Sokka has every reason.

**reviews**

**DirtWaterPrince** thank you for that. I seriously hope the ending lives up to the rest of the story.

**ohsoxalive** hehe, thank you!

**Kitty East** I think that's partly because I have so huge respect for both Katara and Zuko's characters. They wouldn't be kissing, not for a while, but it's obvious after season 2 that they're curious about each other and that they both realize that they have some common bonds. But it still would take some time. Not that I don't like kissing, mind you. XD

**fuzzytomato** this story took me as far as it wanted and then dropped me off. I can't stop it. :P And Zuko needs some redemption, fo' realz.

**catho** I hope Zuko does some major growing up in season 3. He'll be almost eighteen in season 3, right? So, there ya go. He's gonna have to make a few decisions on his own.

**Cathy: **wow, I'm glad you're getting into this. And, hopefully, the Zutara keeps you happy.

**Story Weaver1** well, Zuko's getting to the end of his journey. Maybe it's time that he got some happiness?


	15. Love

**Disclaimer:** nothing, do I own 

**Teaser:** spawn of the nothingness, child of dirt, son of the abyss... despair and, therefore, die

**Author's Notes:** and now the story ends, my friends. And just in time, too, seeing as how Season 3 is starting up ad this will now be AU. And am I worried Maiko? No, I'm not. Zuko's seventeen, ya'all. This relationship will not last. It wouldn't be realistic. Plus, being seventeen you know he's going to be amking tons of stupid-boy mistakes. I'd rather have him do them with Mai than Katara. That way, when they do get toegther, Zuko will be a mature man! There's my faulty logic!

* * *

**Part XIV: Love/**

_"What wound did ever heal but by degrees?"_  
-"Othello"

* * *

There is a certain stone in Zuko's heart—not stomach, heart, always heart—when he prepares to leave the Southern Water Tribe. It is strange, because he has never felt more compelled to stay before, even knowing that he is called away.

There is a certain stone in Zuko's heart—not stomach, heart, always heart—when he prepares to leave the Southern Water Tribe. It is strange, because he has never felt more compelled to stay before, even knowing that he is called away.

Katara no longer talks to him and he thinks it is partly that, and partly that this place is more his home than anything else has ever been.

"Why do you have to go?" she asks him the day before he plans to leave. Her face is bright and fierce and heartbreaking. "Sokka can't keep you from staying. The villagers won't let him. _I_ won't—"

"I can't—Katara, there's something I need—need to do." The words are hard to form. Words that have always been easy for him to say. He has always been able to say he is leaving. Yet, here, he falters.

"What? I thought… I thought you had done all that."

"No. I—I couldn't go _there_." He looks at her to see if she understands and he thinks that, yes, she does. That is why he can say the rest. "I need to go to the Fire Nation. I have to be there. Uncle and Azula and Ozai… they need to be there."

"But—"

"Katara, _please_, I—I don't want to. I have to. Don't you under—understand…?"

They stare at each other, and Zuko wonders why he doesn't feel a wall between them like he should. Katara looks ready to say something and Zuko almost wishes she would because he so desperately wants to _know_ what her eyes have seen in him. But leaving is already hard enough and if Katara speaks now he might never go.

And that would defeat the purpose.

"I can talk to Aang, he'll see that the Fire Lord lets you on the council, gives you a job there," she offers and it looks like she is oddly pained.

"No, I'm not staying. That's not who I am anymore." He wants to touch her, just run his hand down her face once, to remember, but he resists. "But I need to go back. Back to the very beginning. Do you understand?"

She has an odd look on her face and he thinks that she will say something that will change everything. And he braces himself for it, his fingers are firm and taut on his rucksack, and he is ready for what she will say.

But she darts out of his tent and he never sees her again and Zuko suddenly knows why igloos are so cold.

When he leaves, the villagers watch him go. He has returned the clothes that Katara has given him because they belong to Sokka more than anyone else. But he isn't cold from the wind. The chill is inside him.

Then someone hands him a new parka. He can't see, he's blind with heaviness, but he thanks whoever it is and the parka is slipped over his back. A group of children give him warmer pants and he puts them on. Then someone—an older man—gives him sturdy snow boots.

Sokka tosses gloves into his face.

"You'll need them," is all he says and Zuko nods, slipping them into the pocket of his parka. He starts to walk past the young man and then Sokka says, "I can't forgive you, you know."

Because he senses Sokka needs to say this, he stops and turns around, ready to listen.

"You didn't—not _directly_—I know, but you… your sister. You killed _her_ and I saw… what you did to her." Sokka face is so unmovable with his grief that Zuko knows there is something on the inside crying out in raw pain. "She did things—to her."

The Kyoshi Warriors. Zuko remembers. He remembers very little of what Azula had told him in Ba Sing Se, but he remembers that.

He was meant to.

Zuko looks at Sokka and sees himself.

"I know," he answers, feeling like here is how he can apologize to Sokka. By doing this.

"Aang said we had to—to forgive. That the war was over and we weren't divided anymore," Sokka goes on, crossing his arms over his chest and looking right down into Zuko's eyes. "But I don't know if can."

"You can't. Not yet." Zuko walks a little closer, until his shoulder nearly brush Sokka's. "Give it time. It… it takes a lot of time."

Yes, time. Time couldn't heal all wounds. Sometimes it couldn't even dull them. But with time understanding came and with understanding came the peace. That settled peace that eases men and women to sleep.

"You—it'll—it'll get better." Not easier. Because it is never easier, but Zuko thinks that it will get better. Because a man has to hope it'll get better. That is all he has when he has lost everything. When everything he loved and cared for is gone without so much of a word or a cry.

"I—I couldn't even _hold_ her when she—when she died," Sokka says but Zuko understands he is not looking for comfort from him. He just needs to tell someone, someone who isn't connected to him. Who won't try to comfort and soothe and say everything will be all alright.

They both know that some things will never be alright.

"Would she want you to suffer?" he asks him and he thinks this is why he met Jin again. For this purpose.

Then that is all that needs to be said between them. Sokka nods to Zuko and walks off, his shoulders proud and square and unbending. Zuko watches him go for a moment, sending a small prayer out that he is not lying.

He turns and looks at the icy village that has become his home. It started out as the stepping stone to returning home and now, in his heart, Zuko knows that it is home. It will be the place that comforts him when he goes back to the place that is no longer home.

There are memories here that make him warm and wistful and grateful to be alive. If Iroh knew, if Iroh could see, Zuko somehow knows that the man would be happy for him. That he would smile and nod and wave.

_"Good job, Zuko,"_ he would have said. _"Good job."_

His heart is light and heavy at the same time. Zuko has grown used to it. And he walks away from home.

When he reaches the opening of the ice wall that guards the village, Katara is waiting for him. She is propped against the frozen snow, her hood drawn low over her face and she is looking away from him.

Somehow, though, Zuko knows what she wants.

She turns when he approaches her and Zuko sees that her face is bright and fierce and passionate, like it had been the moment he had walked into the village. Like when she had held out her hand for him.

They stand facing each other, the wind ripping at them. With everything to say and no way to say it.

Then, Katara finds the words. "Maybe you'll come back."

Zuko wants to tell her that, yes, yes he'll come back but he can't be sure. He touches just the tips of her elbows because he isn't sure how much he is allowed to touch. But he wants to grab her and hold her tight because he knows now why he doesn't want to leave. But he's a not finished man, and he can't come to her unless he's whole.

Wordlessly, she presses herself against him and stands on her tiptoes and her mouth moves easily over his. Zuko wraps his arms around her waist, shivering against her, and pressing his open mouth fully into hers. And they are kissing and it is wonderful. It is a promise and a _maybe_. Because _maybe_ he'll come back and in this world all they have is maybe and it has become good enough.

She tastes like something he should know, but he can't quite grapple the meaning behind it. His mind struggles with words and meanings as Katara filters out everything else and for this one moment his soul is off the ground because in this special reprieve, it is only them. And it is _wonderful_.

It is strong and powerful and it sweeps over him and he is gripping her hard, not ready to let go, not nearly ready. Yet he knows he must because he has to go so he can come back. Because Katara deserves nothing less than a complete man. Even if the kisses are hot and ready and _don't leave me please_ he knows that they will both regret it if he does not finish what he has started.

Her thumb rubs over his scar and Zuko thinks that this is what it would have felt like if she had healed it. Cool and gentle and perfect.

He breaks away and he looks into her face and feels his heart burn. "Maybe I'll come back."

Then, because Katara understands—_she always understands_—she backs away and lets him go. And Zuko leaves without looking back. Because Zuko and Katara do not look back, they only look forward, and perhaps, one day, they will see each other in.

As he walks away, he prays that his journey will take him back here, that he belongs with her. He cannot be sure, but he can be sure that he feels her eyes on his back, watching him and waiting for him and always, always, always understanding him.

And he knows that wherever he goes he will feel her eyes on him and it will soothe him. Make the aches and pain go away. Katara's eyes are beacons in the night and he follows what they promise. Tomorrow. He trusts her to wait and he trusts her to lead him home. And he knows that she will never, ever stop watching for him.

Zuko licks his lips and realizes Katara tastes like tomorrow.

* * *

**notes:** I had such trouble finding a good why to end this thing... argh, it was such a hard ending to write. But ending's have always been mine weakness. I always want to give them a happy ending, but I don't want it to be cheesy. XD It's a very ambiguous ending, I know. It's basically up to you to decide if Zuko ends up with Katara again or not, or if she was just another stone in his path to finding himself. Personally, I like to think Zuko made it back to her sometime in the near-distant future and had lots of adorable Zutara babies. But KoN isn't about happily ever afters, it's about Zuko growing up and finding himself so... you choose what's best for him. 

**reviews**

**kamena** thanks. I never meant this thing to go so deep, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. XD

**Hollywoodland:** you don't suck. I forget to review stuff all the time. :P And, no, don't hate Sokka. I mean, could you forgive Zuko if you knew it was his sister you killed your girlfriend? Not to mention that his father was killed by the Fire Nation, and his mama, too. Wow, actually, it sucks to be Sokka.

**Story Weaver1** Sokka's overprotectiveness of Katara actually seems really out of character for him. As much as Sokka doesn't admit, you know he knows she can take care of herself. He didn't seem too worried about her crushing on Jet, did he? He was more concerned about Jet's morals. Sokka knows that Katara's more than capable. Plus, if he was so darn protective of her, would he have let her come on the adventure in the first place? No. The "break her heart, and I'll break your neck" speech is alright, since I'm pretty sure all male relations give that to the guy who's going to be joining their family through marriage, but that's really the only time.

**Kitty East** I don't blame Sokka. How can you? His hate of the Fire Nation, and its ruling monarchs, has had over fifteen years to fester. It take more than a few choice words from your Friendly Neighborhood Avatar to change that. And what happened between Katara and Sokka...? You'll have to decide. XD Because I'm evil.


End file.
